The Exodus
by Morithil
Summary: Sequel to The Hybrid. A young rebel transporting a disc, the contents of which are vital to Zion, is killed. The information was never delivered. Smith is temporarily recruited by the construct in exchange for his future, but the past won't let him go.
1. Ghost

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**1. Ghost.**

The girl ran from street to street, her phone pressed tightly to her ear. She darted this way and that, before emerging into a small courtyard.

It was dark. And unearthly quiet.

The girl was uneasy. She'd been running for some time now, and yet no attacks. No agents. Yet. She'd literally run into one about nine blocks ago. Now she was trying to get to the exit she'd been near to before running away.

In short she was doubling back, retracing her steps to get out of the Matrix.

Her breathing was becoming more ragged. Where were the agents? Why didn't they follow her? Well, to be truthful, she'd turned and pelted in the opposite direction without turning back to see if they were gaining on her.

And now she was alone.

She didn't like it. She didn't like being alone. It made her more afraid. The girl needed company, some sort of companionship. And now she was alone in the Matrix and there were agents after her.

She had the disc.

She had the disc in her jacket pocket. The disc that could change everything that the rebellion had ever known about the possibilities within the Matrix. The information was encrypted but she knew how to decode it. She already had, and the contents were memorised in her brain. She just needed to get to the drop off point, and get back into the real world.

Her thoughts turned to another human. A human who used to be captain of one of the finest ships in Zion's fleet. A human who supposedly died in the Matrix. But lately there had been rumours.

The girl retreated to a darkened corner of the courtyard to rethink her strategy.

Yes, lots of rumours.

Rumours that she wasn't dead. Rumours, whispers in the hushed cabins of docked ships (it was notorious bad luck to mention the subject while in flight) that the human 

had been accepted by the construct and was now "living" in the Matrix.

Impossible. The body cannot live without the mind. And yet some had even claimed to have seen her, a face in the crowd, a passing stranger.

A malignant ghost.

The girl had forgotten the ghost's name. Suddenly, out of the cloying darkness came a voice.

"Are you alright?"

The girl sighed, but still remained on edge. It was a female voice, polite, enquiring, but with a reassuring degree of warmth to it.

"Yes, thank you".

The voice stepped out of the shadow. A woman. Tall, slim built, and beautiful. Impossibly straight brown hair tied up high in a long, but neat ponytail that swayed at her nape. She was wearing dark glasses despite the fact that it was the middle of the night.

The woman chuckled.

"You humans. So gullible. So easily found out".

The girl gasped as the woman moved further into the light. She was wearing a sharply cut black trouser suit with a white shirt and a tie. 

An agent.

The girl tried to scream as the agent lifted her up by her throat and gazed up at her pitiful face, struggling to breath. Reaching for the disc she pulled it out but the woman tightened her grip on her throat and it fell to the ground with a clatter.

She looked down at the dispassionate face of the woman.

"Who-who are you?"

The woman smiled blandly.

"A ghost".

* * * * * * *

The ship had cruised warily along the winding passages of the sewers. 

She was the Olympus, acting as messenger. Oddly enough, it _was_ broadcasting a pirate signal as one of its crew sped to a drop off point to notify Zion of another casualty of the war against the machines. 

The ship was on its way to Zion, and home.

A young one this time. A girl, who had momentarily disappeared whilst in the Matrix.

She had been pulled out of the Matrix, seemingly half dead, and then she'd spoken, in a voice that wasn't her own. A female voice, yes, but not hers.

"The rumours are true".

Then she'd collapsed and been pronounced dead seconds later. It was a mystery to be sure, thought Narada. He'd examined the body himself after the ship had docked in Zion. He was a doctor, a healer, of sorts. He was also the resident coroner and advisor to the council in a war that had claimed too many lives already. Narada was, as he often remarked, another genuine child of Zion. Not born, but nevertheless more at home in the real world. Unlike his brother, Captain Sol of the Apollo, a respected rebel fighter and captain. He'd returned to Zion some time ago, disillusioned with fighting in the Matrix and had remained there, in the last human city, until his sudden and unexpected death three months previous. 

Narada was not like Sol. He had taken after their mother, with her calm, gentle temperament and patience. None of Sol's trademark abruptness or commanding persona. Yet his brother had been a different man when he'd returned. Narada had never asked him what happened on the Apollo on the day before he flew home, but Sol had become less demanding, less sure of himself.

Sometimes Sol had woken up shouting for someone. A woman. Narada had never caught her name. Whenever he'd asked him about the recurring nightmares, what they'd been about, his brother had remarked simply,

"A face from the past".

Narada sighed. There was work to be done, and a report to send to the council and to the ship that the girl was on. The mystery would have to wait until tomorrow.

He closed up his folder and left the quiet of the office. As he walked back to his room he stopped, as he always did, to listen to the distant but pulsing sounds coming from the machinery below.

Machines above us, machines below us. One of these groups was trying to kill them, the other was prolonging their survival.

The irony had not escaped him.

Narada paused and opened the folder again. The girl had been a carrier. She'd been transporting something to a drop off point. A disc.

What could a disc hold that was worth more than a life?

Narada considered the possibilities. Vital information on sentinel activity on the surface? No; other ships would have notified Zion sooner and besides, Zion knew of the impending dangers, the millions of machines drilling downwards. And the girl was young. Younger and less experienced than others on her ship-why had she been chosen to make the drop?

Had she been chosen? Or was the disc something she'd discovered by accident?

What could a disc hold that was worth more than a life?

Narada walked to his room and slid into his bed, thinking. Something was bothering him about the disc. And what the girl had said about the rumours being true..rumours about-the human that was accepted into the construct and was now existing purely within the Matrix?

A face from the past.

There were so many things Narada had never asked his temperamental brother. So many things he never knew about him. Now he regretted his silence, even if he had held his tongue over the years out of respect for Sol's privacy.

He would bring his report to the Council tomorrow. There was a lot to discuss.

Narada drifted into an uneasy sleep, filled with dreams of his brother and the nameless woman he called out for in his sleep.

* * * * * * *


	2. Primary Interrogation

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**2. Primary Interrogation. **

Agent Carlisle walked down the narrow taupe corridor into the interrogation room. The human sat, uncomfortable, in the chair. Blonde hair, mid twenties, a glazed look and pronounced joints in his hands that identified him as a hacker; spending hours typing in front of computers. 

A potential rebel. He had to be crushed. Unless-unless he would help them.

Carlisle sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk. She did not remove her glasses. She sat, neutrally, her hands clasped on the desk. She pulled the file that lay to her right without shifting her gaze.

The human sat up with interest.

So predictable, she thought. So ignorant of the truth.

But that was why she was here-to prevent the humans that were not unplugged from knowing the truth. Carlisle glanced behind her at the door.

She was being evaluated. Assessed. There were at least a dozen pairs of eyes watching from outside the door.

Her first interrogation. 

As her purpose went, Carlisle fulfilled it well. She fought rebels. She killed rebels. She had developed her abilities in the Matrix. She was fast. Almost impossibly so. She eliminated targets, humans that the rebels determined were ready to be unplugged.

But she showed an unhealthy adherence to working alone.

This, she knew, went against her rigorous programming and strict purpose. However, back to the human, now peering at the file and trying to read the information upside down.

When will they ever learn, she mused.

"As you can see we've been monitoring you for-some time, now, Mr. Jepson".

The human shifted awkwardly. He knew he was in for it.

Carlisle flipped the folder closed.

"You, are a hacker, Mr Jepson. You spend hours trying to crack into government bases and now", here she leaned back in the chair, "you've been contacted by someone. A known terrorist."

"How do you know this?"

Carlisle smiled bleakly. We are the government, Mr Jepson, we see everything".

She continued as the human lapsed into silence.

"Morpheus".

The name slipped off her tongue like oil. The human sat up.

"What do you want?"

For a fleeting second, Carlisle felt what could only be described as dejá vu, like someone she'd once known had asked that question. She dismissed the sensation quickly.

"We want you to help us bring him to justice, Mr Jepson. We want you to work for us, to contact Morpheus again and thus bring him to justice-we want you to bring a known terrorist to justice...in return", here she pushed the file aside, "you get a new lease of life. A clean slate. No criminal record".

Jepson leaned back in his chair, a look of disgust on his face.

"Fuck you, lady".

Carlisle sighed.

"The answer is no-and before you think of asking me anything else, I want to see my lawyer".

Carlisle smiled knowingly.

"Tell me, Mr Jepson", again the feeling that she'd heard those words being said before swept her, "what good is meeting your lawyer if you're unable _to see_?"

The only thing heard from the outside of the room was Jepson screaming in fear and bashing into furniture as he stumbled blindly around the room.

Carlisle pinned him down on the desk before pulling his shirt up and dropping the bug onto his stomach, and watched it pull itself into his body. Jepson was still screaming in horror at the experience, right until he fainted.

She released him and walked to the door, knocking twice. Two agents emerged and dragged the human's prone form out.

Carlisle listened to the information flooding to her ear piece.

Success.

She had passed.

* * * * * * *

Smith looked upwards at Neo's disappearing form as he shot upwards into the sky. He was impressed, but not surprised by the development of the human's powers in the Matrix. Hundreds of other Smiths walked away from the empty court, the clones he had made in order to give Neo a fight that would demonstrate _his _new powers.

Anderson had left, flown away from him. There would be time for another fight. Time for the rebels to be defeated. Time.

There was always time.

Smith walked away with some degree of satisfaction. He was free. This was the first time that Neo and he had fought since his re-emergence into the Matrix. 

There was always time for Neo to die.

A human wearing a light coloured coat walked past the court. She had dark hair that reached past her shoulders.

For a fraction of a second, Smith was reminded of someone.

He winced at the memory that still had some power over him. True, he was emotionless as ever, but the memory still had the power to instil traces of feelings that he had long since tried to forget.

He tried not to, but her name escaped his lips.

"Persis".

Her voice flooded back to him as he recalled her.

"You're already starting to act like a human".

She'd said that the first time that they'd met. It was fortunate that he could recall his time with her without the full extent of the emotion that she'd instilled in him long ago; otherwise he would be truly vulnerable.

An agent appeared at the entrance to the court.

Smith raised an eyebrow. The agent was one of those less than improved upgrades that he so detested.

"Smith".

"Yes".

"You're wanted. I have to ask you to come with me".

"And if I choose not to?"

The agent folded his arms behind his back.

"We are aware of your abilities to clone yourself using any entity you so choose. If you choose to do so now, you will have to answer for your actions to the rest of us".

As if from nowhere, hundreds of agents appeared and surrounded Smith. He had been expecting this. He could easily fight and clone each and every one of them, but he was intrigued. Not being wired into the construct anymore he was unaware of the reasons for his being summoned.

Smith was interested in what the agents wanted. He decided to follow them to the government building. After all, another fight would just bore him. Only two people he had fought had ever made him want to fight them again.

Neo. Persis.

Persis was dead.

Neo was very much alive. Smith smiled. These upgrades, he thought, when will they ever learn that _I_ am not the problem at this moment. The humans are.


	3. Conversation Piece

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**3. Conversation Piece.**

Narada sat in the relative dark of his room, pondering the rumours that were close to driving him to distraction from his work. It wasn't as if he was the only one in Zion who was perturbed by the stories that kept crawling out of the woodwork with every passing day.

An enormously powerful agent who was intent on Zion's destruction through destroying Neo, that rumour was actually closer to the truth. Agent - was it Smith? Or something like that. Another, a female agent (A female agent? Narada mused- was there even such a thing?) What purpose could there be in varying the 'sex' of a sentient programme, creating a single female agent in the Matrix where the familiar but no less chilling figures of male agents dominated the psyches of every rebel entering the world created by the machines? It seemed too fantastical.

But then if someone had told him that a man could be killed, come back to life and then develop the ability to fly-that was another matter altogether.

Sometimes Narada wondered if there was a connection between the seemingly implausible myth of the female agent and the woman that his brother had called out ffor, or called out to in his restless sleep. This particular morning that idea was threatening to drive him insane, not least because there had been mutterings around Zion to suggest the very same.

He got up from his chair where he had been uncomfortably positioned and made his way out of the room and down the corridor to the lifts.

There was only one place where he could get anything approaching an answer, and only a few select people who could possibly give him one.

*********

Smith followed the upgrade, Johnson, down the always bland corridors of a government building. He was suitably mystified, one, by the construct attempting to persuade him to aid the other agents, upgrades, no less; though his opinion of them was slightly less than complimentary. Secondly, by the almost sheepish expression on the other agents who had passed them walking in the corridor, as if they had failed in some way by having to ensure that he, a Smith, an older programme, had to be recruited to deal with a problem that they could not.

"When will I be briefed as to the nature of this, _assignment_?"

His stress on the last word obviously mocking the fact that it was his, and not the assignment of the allegedly improved upgrade he was following.

Johnson paused at the last door in the corridor and stood in silence until his two compatriots appeared beside him. The regulation three-agent unit was still in use, then. The construct was becoming less inventive, Smith mused, arching an elegant eyebrow in the process. The agents spoke in turn. Three bodies, one stream of thought.

"The situation is that of a test and a report being needed".

"We request your assistance in monitoring a more recently added agent to the Matrix".

"The agent in question shows symptoms of behavioural patterns more assigned to humans".

"More succinctly, the agent in question shows signs of behavioural patterns like that of your own".

"We shall proceed to the subject of this assessment?"

"Yes".

"The agent is waiting to be informed as to its future".

"If the agent is found to be deficient, or unreliable it is to be deleted".

Smith tilted his head in interest. This 'assignment' became more complex and important with each monotone sentence. He rose what he considered to be a relevant question.

"What was the nature of the first symptom this agent displayed?"

The upgrades looked at each other before answering.

It was Johnson who provided the eventual answer.

"The agent displayed signs of having a system anomaly through its unusual adherence to working as a solitary unit".

Smith blinked.

He had assumed that he was, in all the history of the Matrix, the only agent ever to display such uncharacteristic attributes. Sentient programmes were designed to work in co-operation with others of their kind, but only he had ever shown unconscious defiance of this basic function.

Johnson opened the door and he followed the other two upgrades into the box like room facing the city through a large window.

********

Narada knocked politely on the metal door of the quarters. After a few seconds passed the door swung open with a rusty creak and a tall figure emerged in the dimness of the electric morning light.

Narada coughed uneasily and offered his hand.

"Titus, I'm Narada. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Sol's brother. We met at-"

The rest of his hastily compiled introduction was dismissed by the door opening fully and a large hand like a solid slab of flesh and muscle gripped his own in a warm greeting.

"Narada; of course I remember you. I served under your brother for a long time. please, come in, have a seat".

Narada smiled gratefully as he entered the small, but cosy quarters that the former co-pilot of the Apollo shared with his family and simultaneously dwarfed as a result of his imposing physique.

"Now", the tough but open face smiled as its owner eased into a chair, "what can I do for you?"

Narada shifted forward in the offered seat he had just occupied.

"Well, I don't really know how to begin this, Titus - you fought alongside my brother for many years, didn't you?"

The giant nodded in confirmation. Narada, emboldened, continued.

"I never really knew my brother - he was so different from me, and I never asked him anything about his time as Captain other than the usual, polite questions that don't really count for anything. My brother was a difficult man to get to know".

Titus chuckled, a deep, riveting sound that seemed to shake his whole body.

"I'll say. Your brother, Captain Sol; no disrespect to the man, but he could shut his mouth and hold everything inside for all he was worth, you know? Tight as a clam, he could be sometimes, and you wouldn't get an answer that did justice to any question you put to him when the mood took him".

Narada laughed, relaxing as he considered the truth behind Titus's words.

"But why tell me this now, Narada? And why tell me at all?"

The smaller man became aware of the lines of hardship around the fighter's eyes and forehead, the minute strands of grey in his thick dreadlocks.

"The last few days, Titus. What happened onboard before the Apollo docked for the last time? My brother came home a changed man, and I want to know if there was a reason why. He used to- well, he used to call out in his sleep for someone in the days leading up to his-", Narada swallowed the word uneasily, "death, a woman, I think. Now there are rumours all over the place, something about a female agent, a human that was accepted into the Matrix and became, if it's at all possible, an agent. The rumours always seem to go hand in hand with my brother's name. What happened?"

Titus' large frame seemed to tense a little at the repeated question.

"Those were strange days, Narada, before we came home. It'll take more than one person to give you the full story. You want answers; don't just come to me for them. You need to speak with who's left of the original crew. Neso, he's still around. I might miss some things out and then you'd be wanting more information I've forgotten".

"Titus, this woman. What's that all about? What was her na-"

The former co-pilot shifted again in his seat and stared at the wall behind Narada's head as if greeting someone he hadn't seen in years.

"Persis. Her name was Persis".

Narada savoured the depth behind the simple utterance of a name.

"I can see we're going to have a lot to talk about".

* * * * * * *


	4. Different, Yet The Same

****

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Once again thanks to alocin and Selina Enriquez, for their unfailing enthusiasm and helpful comments. You guys rule!

Morithil.

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**4. Different, Yet The Same.**

The chair is minimal in design.

It is comprised chiefly of metal, its particles demonstrating the nature of the material it has been fashioned from.

It is relatively cold to the touch. Nerve endings respond to the slight nuances in temperature to surfaces that the skin comes into contact with.

It is a solid structure. Hard, durable material that is resistant, but not impossible to mould or demolish.

Agent Carlisle sat in the metal chair by the window, the chair facing the wall to the left of the room, her profile starkly outlined against the bare light from the overhead strobes and the supposedly natural light streaming in the through the window.

The mildly severe, austere ponytail that her brown hair was tied up in accentuated her finely honed features and high cheekbones. Her hair would look more pleasing in tumultuous, darker waves, or perhaps in a dense multitude of thin braids that would easily reach below her shoulder blades. But agents have no need or desire for such frivolous details. They are programmes, and their aesthetic appearance is more to inspire fear and respect rather than admiration of any form.

Carlisle embodies such guidelines.

And yet she is still here, the subject of an assessment that would have normally been deemed unnecessary and the whole matter ended via her deletion-but then Carlisle has always known there's something not quite regulation about her. There's an intangible, ambiguous something that instils behavioural patterns and a solitary persona in her that are dangerously human. This meeting has been held to introduce her to the programme (she assumes after some logical deliberation) that will monitor her over the allotted period of time and determine her fate. 

Deletion. Or an opportunity to further prove her capabilities.

Carlisle is not nervous. Sentient programmes do not _feel. _And yet-there it is again, the flicker of consternation on a face like a temporarily inactive computer screen. Alert, but not revealing of anything. The flicker is a glitch in her making, surely. The symptom not unlike the dejâ vu that humans (how she detests them) experience whenever the Matrix is modified in some way.

Not unlike a human. This is what plagues her, not every conscious moment, but an awareness that appears sporadically and has done since her installation into the Matrix and the wiring process into the construct.

The door opens and three agents-no wait, one is not wired in. His earpiece is absent. Other than that, to all appearances, he is another agent. Carlisle rises from the cold chair and stands rigidly straight to greet her fellow programmes.

There's something not quite right about the third programme.

There's something independent about him. He looks exactly, bar the earpiece, like the other agents, and yet-

He's so consciously separate from them, it's as if he's standing in a room by himself and she's watching him through the double edged glass of an interrogation room mirror.

The programme emits a strange kind of, not literal, as he does not radiate heat in terms of degrees celsius and/or fahrenheit, but almost completely intangible, an almost emotional and barely detectable-

_Warmth_.

It was only then that Carlisle registered the fact that the programme in question was studying her with more than a hint of curiosity and-accessing databases-confirmed, with a look similar to well disguised, but nevertheless present surprised recognition.

********

Narada settled into the easy comfort of the soft seat in the room that lay some distance away from where he had talked with Titus. Two levels up, at least a ten minute walk to the room itself.

The former operator of the Apollo swayed round the doorframe of his small kitchen and made his way over to the equally soft chair opposite Narada's in a corner of the small lounge.

He limps slightly with each step.

His left leg is battle scarred. It was in a metal brace for some time, Titus informs Narada as his long time friend departed for the other room. It happened before they got home. Narada remembered the arrival of the Apollo well. He had rushed from work, late as usual. By that time the crew had disembarked and the ship's fate was being decided. His brother showed up outside his door, weary as an old pro should never appear to be, a dullness in his gaze, a painful authority in his stance. Narada had welcomed him awkwardly and he had spent the night in his rooms, talking, or rather making small talk until both had retired to bed. Narada studied Neso.

The operator's trademark, his likeable gentle persona is there somewhere, under the scars.

"Laser injury", Titus had rumbled, "he's damn lucky to be here; any closer and it would've cut him in half like a piece of wood".

Neso disregards the limp like a dead fly on a windowsill; it's there, but it's not mentioned, not by him or anyone else. It lingers, but the operator has a strong frame of mind and his quiet strength of character had dealt with the fact that almost all of his calf is missing. He's grown his hair since his days on the Apollo, Titus notes, and is beginning to look like a defiant Vietnam veteran, with just the right amount of hard earned toughness about his person.

There are hot drinks handed round and Narada drinks his gratefully. His work has overshadowed his personal investigation, injuries from many ships crowding his workplace, but he does what he can to help all the fighters recover, recuperate, and then he watches. He watched them leave his small office and go out to fight again, defiant in their new health. He's still recovering from the shock of who Persis was, having never connected the name of the woman who had affected Sol so much with the quietly legendary figure.

"Captain?"

Titus steps in to explain.

"She was Captain Persis, Narada; surely you heard of her? One of finest in all of Zion's fleet, she was. Second only to, and this had nothing to do with the fact she was a woman", Titus points to confirm his status as a man who judges status on ability, not gender, "'cos she was something else. Tougher than a lot of guys who did the same job-but she was second, I'd say, only to Morpheus and perhaps Niobe. Not as proud as Niobe, but she had that whole silence is power thing going on sometimes. You know, still waters run deep".

Neso nods his approval at Titus' summary of the woman they both knew.

Narada's jaw had dropped in disbelief.

"_That Persis_? But-surely-surely not, I mean, she was practically infamous, in a select kind of way. Not everyone knew about her, right? But somehow, those who did seemed to be full of nothing but praise for her, that much I remember".

The other two men had silently voice their agreement.

Titus and Neso started with the basics, literally. Narada pushes forward, absorbs the train of events from the Antigone's destruction, Persis' stay on the Apollo. Her death, my God, what a controversial way to go. He had wondered, only once to his knowledge, why the praise had not continued, and how it always seemed to be directed at the past. Narada realised the policy of secretive silence that the Apollo's crew had taken when it came to the demise of Captain Persis, of the Antigone, one of Zion's finest.

"So what happened then?"

Operator and co-pilot look at each other for points of reference.

"Sentinel attack. Near the old service and away stations. We were heading back to the what was left of the Antigone to leave the Captain there".

"The Captain? But Sol-"

"I mean Persis", Neso explained, "We called her captain too, even on the Apollo. She just-she just inspired that kind of respect, really. Right Titus?"

"And that's the truth".

The story emerges over more drinks. On their way to deposit the body of Persis, somewhat fittingly, with those of her crew, sentinels attacked. The Apollo must have been blessed with a charmed speed to even make it out of there at all; such was the speed and ferocity of the assault. It was not without it's losses, though. Part of the ship's hull had been cut and torn away, taking with it the metal tank containing the Persis' remains, and two members of the crew.

Syenes and Syllis.

"Goddamn", Titus swore under his breath, "but that was a hard day. Lot to take in when we got back".

Narada closed his eyes to block out the images of two women being sucked out of the ship's gaping hull and into darkness at high speed.

"Echo got reassigned to another ship after we got back", Neso remembered, cradling the cup in his still-gloved hands, reminders of his operating days, "the Golem, if I remember. Needed to get back into the swing of things, Echo said. Helped to forget all the stuff that we saw happening on the Apollo. Heard from him a while back last time it docked. Said it was the same as the Apollo had been. Different, of course, but in some ways the same".

Narada thanked them both on his way out. There was a lot to digest from what the two men had disclosed to him. So it was true, and the rumours of Persis, as that was her name, being accepted could be more realistic than anyone knew.

A ghost. A face from the past. The woman his brother imagined he loved more than his pride, and who, in death, managed to hurt him more than that fickle emotion ever did.

* * * * * * *


	5. Fight Test

alocin-thanks for your suggestion regarding rating – I must have taken ff.net's policy of "if you're not sure, go for the highest rating" too seriously ^^. Here's to more reviews now that I've made the necessary changes!

Selina-so, Persis/Agent Carlisle reminds you of the TX in T3, huh? Interesting…thanks for the praising one word reviews!

**Morithil. **

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**5. Fight Test.**

Smith had not been prepared for the approaching literal shock to his system on entering the room. He had composed himself admirably in the space of 2.36054 seconds exactly, to be precise, but the after effects were raging through his proverbial bloodstream.

He had walked into that room and-

Persis had risen from the chair and stood neutrally in front of him.

The nonsensical and insignificant thought reverberating round his brain was persistent in its certainty,

She _never_ sat in that chair. Never. Once, he'd offered her the chance to sit in one like it, when he had led her to the government building. She'd refused, dripping water onto the bland carpet.

Persis. Persis who died. Persis who raced a bullet to save him and took it instead of him, who plummeted from the top of a skyscraper and bled to death in a quiet side street, having rid him of the emotion talent she'd nurtured in him. Persis, formerly captain of the ship Antigone, rebel fighter, human, notorious in select rebel circles, suffered unusual after effects as a result of her connection to the Matrix being partly severed. Hybrid, part human, part machine/sentient programme. Incredibly powerful. Recognised as being remarkably beautiful for one of her kind. Often distant, aloof. Complex. 

Dead.

That train of mechanical thought ran through Smith's consciousness, and it was only due to the aforementioned removal of the emotional reciprocity that he was able to acknowledge all that, and more, with something as minute as a partially raised eyebrow.

He stood in silence while the three, yes he supposed she was an agent now, conferred in similar silence, the only outward signs of communication demonstrated by an occasional nod of a head, a change in stance.

Johnson, or one of the other upgrades-they were so alike, Smith joked weakly to himself, like artificially created triplets born from the same A.I. womb-addressed him.

"This is the agent in question. Agent Carlisle".

Smith came dangerously close to doing what humans had called, "a double take" at the mention of her name. That was a coincidence that defied belief. He offered an emotionless hand, though internally, his intelligent mind was in turmoil.

Agent Carlisle took the preferred hand firmly and loosely shook it. Just once. Then, that elegant organ returned to its owner's side almost robotically, a movement that instilled in Smith a quick but briefly painful animosity, as if the movement was incorrect, out of place. Which was false in itself, as the agent that stood before him was indeed, an agent.

Smith only realised that the upgrades had left the room when the subtle click of the latch in the door stirred him from his thoughts.

Strange she seemed to him now. Strange and beautiful.

That same face, the lines of her body. Her hair was black once, he remembered, not the shade of brown it is now. Her eyes are veiled by dark glasses. The eyes regarding him are his. She is so much like him, so much more than before she ceased to exist. It's not right to respond in such a human way, but Smith feels angry at the change in her. He's not sure why-change, after all, is inevitable. But not in one who had died.

There's a moment when he's back in that hallway, and Neo stands up again after being killed, and proceeds to destroy him. The memory, combined with the rebellious fury that Persis' changed self has stimulated, overflows.

Smith punched brutally at Carlisle's face. She swayed to avoid it with a finely honed ease. They fight with the distanced attitude only agents can keep.

The same set of prescribed moves, the punches, the blocks, the offensive and defensive manoeuvres. Smith knows them well, because they are his. Carlisle wields the offensive moves with unbelievable skill, all the more amazing because as only he knows-

She wasn't an agent to begin with. She was human.

Smith punched again, repeatedly, his fists swerving perilously close to her face. Carlisle remains as impassive, Smith thought with a hint of bitterness as he remembered, as he had been when they had first fought. He felt the knot of what he grudgingly admitted was frustration and anger rising in his throat and struck out again. Carlisle's response confirmed his suspicions that she was, in fact, though seemingly ignorant of it, Persis.

Carlisle flipped backwards with a lithe grace that seemed elegant, cat like, flexible, and about as far away from the robotic moves of an agent as was possible. She sprang up from the carpet, vaulting on her hands, and leapt onto the metal chair she had previously been sitting on. Perching, one leg raised on the back of the chair, the other balanced on the arm of the piece of furniture, she raised both fists, one in front of her emotionless face, the other at a right angle to its partner, held perfectly in a horizontal bar of unfeeling flesh.

Smith restrained the smile of recognition that threatened to curve across his normally stern face. Carlisle tilted her head questioningly at his pause.

"What is your assessment regarding my combat technique?" she interrogates, her voice like a flattened version of the subtly deadpan, naturally authoritative tone he remembers. Smith relaxes, if only momentarily, and throws back his answer.

"Your technique is most interesting, though it would seem appropriate to test its appliance in different situations to fully assess the viability of its use, given that it differs from the standard procedure".

He could almost swear that she frowns at this remark, frowns at him questioningly from behind those dark glasses. Smith wonders if her eyes are still that unique shade of blue that they turned soon after-

Carlisle flew into motion, after nodding submissively at his comments. She spun rapidly, her leg suspended at a right angle out from her body, her foot pointed like a dancer's. Smith ducked to avoid its spinning heel. He turned round swiftly and grabbed her leg fiercely at the juncture of hip and thigh-he paused for milliseconds and realises that this was how he had responded to her attack when they'd first met. The too-brief-to-be-realised pause was all the other agent needed. Throwing herself backwards as if to do a handstand, Carlisle did just that, allowing her weight to be held by Smith's iron grip. Her hands locate the floor just in front of his rubber soled shoes, and shifting some of her body weight onto her splayed fingers, kicked out with her free leg. It flicked upwards like a blunt knife and caught Smith neatly under the jaw, sending his head back like the effect of whiplash in a car accident. Smith stumbled backwards at the unexpected improvisation. Carlisle pirouetted lightly on one foot before cartwheeling back towards the corner of the room. Smith watched, impressed, as she jumped over the desk in the corner before defying gravity, sprinting up the walls and round the corner of the room, finishing via a lightning somersault in mid air and landing, defiant, on top of the desk, her right leg bent as if she was preparing to spring out at him, her hands in an unmistakeable piece of martial arts imagery, exotically held out, on behind her head, the palm flat and aimed at the window, the other held in front, palm up, unwittingly beckoning him.

She stands there as if she's waiting for the tail ends of her trenchcoat to swish behind her before settling against the backs of her long legs.

But there's no undulating ripple of leathery fabric, no graceful, seraph like cream coloured wings suggested by her long coat. There's no kimono to emphasise the Oriental tinge to her movements and features. Her gold tinted, visor - like sunglasses aren't positioned before her eyes to catch the last glints of sunlight or tempt him to place them in his pocket and feel their light weight against his body through the suit that they both wear now.

Smith inwardly grimaced at the stark contrast between the Persis he once knew and the agent standing, tense and ready, looking down on him through the dark lenses of her glasses.

The agent flicked a curious eyebrow at his thoughtful demeanour.

Smith looked up, confronting the vision in front of him that mocked him with every attribute that screamed Persis and every feature that knelled the word 'agent'. He smiled grimly, trying to separate himself from the error of judgement that was clamouring to be heard inside him. The silent voice crying out in horror against what the machines had done to her, what the Matrix and other programmes had bent to their will and what just being in the room with the one entity he had ever desired to remain in the company of was doing to his emotionally distorted consciousness.

He sighed as if bored with her tactics.

"Agent Carlisle, you give me no choice but to test you above and beyond the extent of your _abilities_".

He hissed the last word menacingly, cold fury taking over. The door to the room they stand in bursts open and one after another, the many clones of himself that he's made flood into the room in a tidal wave of ruthlessly cold wrath. They pool into the compact space and Smith joins them as they surround Carlisle, suspended, her knees at eye level to the baleful agents surrounding the desk and seething in unison as one automated unit.

When she finally soared into the air above the many heads, he's ready for it and tackles her as she hovers in the space above the sea of Smith copies. They crash, undignified, to the floor, Smith's arms wrapped tightly round her, pinning her hands and arms to her rigid sides as the crowd of agents pile on top of them, creating a pyramid of dead weights and iron grips. She struggles so fiercely in his grasp that in the space of ten seconds, she's nearly thrown him, as well as the others, completely off her. They've created a small pocket in the cavernous mountain of bodies on top of them, and its in this tiny space that they fight a contained battle, fists flying in close range, Carlisle's legs kicking out at in a variety of moves whenever he shifts above her and unwittingly gives her a window of opportunity to attack again and again.

He's on top of her, crushing her under his weight as he looks through the darkly opaque glasses. Smith found himself on a tangent to his normal train of thought, found himself alone in a similarly dark and heated space with her, where he's been before and which now compels him to lower his mouth to hers and make her remember.

He's still in the midst of his self indulgent illusion, still stroking the warm cavern of her mouth with his tongue, and feeling her slide her tongue provocatively along his as they kiss, when he realises he's still on top of a rather detached Carlisle, and practically breathing down her neck.

When she finally succumbs to the-he admits-unfair advantage he's had, he concludes that she is completely unaware of who she once was. With that summation, Smith also confirmed that her powers in the Matrix had doubled and that his memories and data logs of his time with her when she was Persis, and still partly human, held more significance to him than he wanted to admit.

She walks out of the room after he's summarised the points on her fighting technique as well as notifying her that he'll be monitoring her work in the field. After she leaves, Smith breathes heavily with effort and the re-emergence of an emotion long forgotten. She leaves him alone with himself, alone with a crowd full of others.

* * * * * * *


	6. Definitions

****

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **After reminding myself that I'd given my characters names for particular reasons, just as the Wachowski brothers had done with the original Matrix trilogy, I decide to post some definitions of most of those mentioned in both stories.

Hope this helps explain why some characters have the fates that they do…

Morithil.

**The Hybrid & The Exodus** character name meanings:

PERSIS: a) The feminine version of the Greek name Perses-the Titan god of man-made destruction; "He who lays waste", therefore, the feminine Persis; "she who lays waste".

b) The name of the third Graiaia, one of the three gray sisters who were one of the first born of the gods-they were "robed in beauty and clothed in saffron". Millenia later, they would be the three greys hags, wise beyond most knowledge who shared an eye between them by which they saw everything.

CALYX: Borrowed from the meaning of a Manga character name. I think it's a type of precious stone...

SOL: Spanish word for "the sun".

APOLLO: The Greek god of the Sun, who rode across the sky in a chariot to pull the Sun across the sky.

ANTIGONE: The name of the daughter of Oedipus, who, when her brother was killed, was forbidden to give him proper funeral rights because of the dishonourable nature of his death. However, because of her love for her brother she gave him a proper burial and funeral honours. In punishment for this she was buried alive. 

TITUS: A Roman general who returned home from the wars to find his family had been murdered. Enraged, he enacted his revenge on all those responsible.

NESO: Greek name meaning, "island".

PRIEST: Pretty self explanatory, really. Oh, btw, when Priest gets cut in half by a laser beam in The Hybrid, that's my sly comment on how the modern church is divided.

AEI: Opposite of Zee (last letter in alphabet) Aei(the first letter) 

ECHO: I think was a nymph of some sort who fell in love with Narcissus. I made Echo a guy, because there seemed to be a predominantly female crew on the Apollo, and it didn't make sense when nearly all the other ships in my fanfic were evenly divided.

SYLLIS, SYENES: Random maidens in Greek mythology. Not much info about them on the net...

OLYMPUS: The mountain above which the Greek gods lived.

HERMES: The name given the Greek god-the Winged Messenger

NARADA: A lesser god in Indian mythology-"The Wandering Seer" of a gentle and kindly nature, often given to offering his advice to others.


	7. Her Maker, Her Corruptor

**AUTHOR"S NOTE: **Apologies for the slight delay in updates-all the chapters have been sitting on my desktop for ages but coursework and other unsavoury things have been keeping me away from uploading them.

Enjoy,

Morithil. 

****

****

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately,I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**6. Her Maker, Her Corruptor.**

Hermes made his way to the bridge, hoping that for once he wouldn't be made subject to the condemning tone of his superiors. Rebel in the Matrix, still rebellious in the face of authority when he wasn't in it. But then who ever got unplugged because they were content to do what everyone and everything else told them to do?

He crossed his fingers behind his back and emerged onto the bridge of the Olympus.

He'd been part of the crew now for about two years, still a greenhorn to some of the more experienced members, who'd spent almost decades fighting the war against the machines, a few of them even longer. He couldn't begin to imagine what that must be like. Two years, he thought to himself, that's all you've spent as a freed mind. As he stood awaiting what he prepared himself to be a sound berating, it dawned on Hermes that today was his birthday. Not the date of his birth as an energy source, immersed into the Matrix and grown like millions of others in the human fields, but the date that he was unplugged.

Happy birthday, he thought miserably. Its all downhill from here on in.

Then he stopped, stopped in the middle of his self pity. What about her? The girl. He wouldn't mention her name now, even to himself for fear of provoking more feelings of overwhelming sadness. How long had she been unplugged? She was so young, to young even by the war's standards to die. Hermes considered. Why had she been picked to go in? Why her, perhaps the least experienced of the Olympus' crew? 

It should have been him who died trying to get the disc to the dropoff and running in vain to make it to the exit in time.

But it wasn't.

He'd been way ahead of her, already at the exit, knowing full well that there were agents abroad in the vicinity. He'd raced, darting from street to street, before deciding on the safer option and making his way to the ringing telephone via the city rooftops, thus avoiding the horror of confronting an agent at street level. At any rate, he hadn't been the one carrying the disc, so the agents must have disregarded him.

The disc. The Exodus. What had been on it? Hermes had pondered for days afterwards. He could still imagine how she must have clung to it desperately, as if she knew its full significance, when she couldn't, only being the carrier, the transporter. Get the disc to Zion. It must be in the hands of the last city's leaders by tonight, they'd been briefed. So why had he been chosen as the one to watch her back, and she given the more dangerous position of the transporter?

Hermes sighed dejectedly.

He should have gone back for her; he should have retraced his steps to where they'd become separated. She'd been scared almost witless, holding onto the disc so tightly he feared it might break in two. But then the call had come, and their operator warned them of the approaching agents. They'd decided to split up and regroup at the exit.

She said she'd make it.

Hermes had asked her if she was sure. After all, she was so young, and hadn't played such a major part in operations of late.

When was her birthday? How long had it been since she'd been unplugged? Hermes shook his head. He'd never asked her. Now he'd never know.

Why had she been chosen?

Hermes made the error of voicing this question to the previously empty bridge.

"Because the Oracle advised it".

Hermes looked up to find the captain staring him in the face. He stammered, attempting to begin several sentences before producing the apology.

"Sir, I apologise, sir".

The captain smiled grimly.

"You're not the only one who's been asking that, Hermes".

Hermes straightened into a ramrod straight position, head held level, eyes averted in respect.

"Sir".

The captain waved off the formality.

"At ease, soldier. The Oracle predicted, to some extent, the events that would unfold surrounding the discovery of the Exodus. She said that only with the youngest could the countdown to the destruction of the Matrix begin. That's why we chose-"

The captain set his jaw in a firm line to avoid biting his lip.

"-her. But, it seems", here he rose from his leaning position, "that the Oracle was mistaken. After all, she is a programme. how could we ever fully trust in something produced by the Matrix".

There's a weary bitterness in his voice, the voice of one who's realised that the end never quite justifies the means. Hermes shifted uncomfortably, arms folded behind his back.

"You've probably been asking yourself why you don't get the high risk duties as often as the rest of the crew, Hermes. Once I might have explained this by referring to your inexperience. Now, now I see fit to grant you more responsibility. You've proved your abilities enough. The next time we need to warn Zion and get a message to a dropoff point, you'll be making the run. Do you understand me, Hermes?"

"Sir, completely, sir".

That grim smile appeared again.

"You'll be able to live up to your namesake".

Hermes nodded politely. Dismissed, he proceeded off the bridge, but the captain's voice called him back a few steps.

"And Hermes? Happy birthday".

Hermes allowed himself a rueful smile.

"Thank you sir".

* * * * * * *

Carlisle and two other agents approached the door of the restaurant kitchen and waited with a patience not unlike that of people studying a coat of paint dry on a wall before them.

The door opened, and instead of a small cupboard where cleaning materials were kept, they were greeted by a lavish hall with twin staircases leading up to the first floor, ornate weaponry and statues adorning every available space on the walls.

Carlisle blinked slowly behind the safety of her dark glasses. There it was, rearing its tiresome yet familiar head again. The shades of memories she felt compelled to relate to herself. She had been here before, and yet her databases contradicted this assumption.

She shook of the unwelcome thoughts with a sharp turn of her head that made the long ponytail of brown hair sway rhythmically against her shoulder blades. She waits outside the room where the programme Persephone is being questioned about her involvement with the now non-existent Keymaker programme. Carlisle knows that the agents are unable to act in the light of her release of the programme to the rebels, including the human Thomas Anderson, hacker alias Neo. When Persephone had approached the doors to be politely questioned, she had paused before her, and studied her features with much the same look that the entity Smith had done. Something bordering on recognition and curiosity. But there was also a hint of pride in the look that Persephone had given her, as if the programme had been responsible for something. Then she had sashayed into the room in much the same fashion as she now left it. 

Again she paused before stalking across the marble floor. She tilted her head a little sideways and half smiled at the emotionless agent to her right as if in farewell, and then walked away.

Carlisle was suspicious of this programme. Persephone. There was an aura of unpredictability about her, she considered. Not to be trusted. And then-again, the familiarity of that aesthetically beautiful face. What was wrong with her? Carlisle ran over the thoughts that plagued her grudgingly. It was an error of judgement; a decision painfully human to want to remember or discover the reason behind these unfortunate images and sound files that permeated her system. Yet Carlisle was becoming almost wistful in her desire to know the full truth.

A rumble in her throat as she attempted to block out the anomalies from her consciousness. A hint of annoyance as she reminded herself that the following day Smith would be monitoring her work in the field. How aggravating.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: ** Preview of coming attractions: next up, Smith and Carlisle at large in the Matrix. However will they cope? …


	8. Field Tactics

alocin-Many thanks again for another review! Much appreciate it; the feedback is very helpful and also rewarding...So that's a huge metaphorical box of chocolates to you for your dedication in sticking with The Hybrid AND The Exodus so far.

Selina- Ah, the ever enthusiastic reviewer...Well, about the whole present/past issue that's come up. I try to interchange the narration, which is in the past tense, with what could be interpreted as the characters' thoughts expressed in present tense, thus getting rid of the repetitive "s/he said", "s/he thought" attachments. Sorry if it confuses, its just a little thing I picked up from reading stuff by the writer Annie Proulx, who does that kind of thing a lot. I will avoid using it in future fanfics^^

Exobiologist-I make you want to love Smith? Cool. Here's the update you been blackmailing me for! *kidding* I will be expecting Defector Programme to be updated as well, you know. *grins*...

Morithil.

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately,I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**7. Field Tactics**

Smith had been hoping that the irksome idea would leave him in peace, but it always managed to entwine itself with the more mundane considerations that he had been processing.

File: http//:www.persis_reciprocate.html/install

Open file?

Cancelled.

She had been so strong, so defiantly powerful, and so silently confident when they had fought, as if she could read his every move before he made it. This was to be expected, after all, he had been imprinted onto her in a time that seemed to worm its way further and further into the past and yet pushed to the front of his awareness.

Carlisle was like an extension of himself, his twin. Except that he knew that the agent that had dismissed him so quickly had once been a human who he had found almost impossible to eject from his system.

He shifted impatiently on the chair. Smith sat, rigidly, his back a vertical ramrod bar, flesh enclosing what might as well have been useless scrap metal, for all that it was worth, for Smith considered himself to be nothing without purpose.

Purpose. It is what drives us, he repeated to himself under his breath.

The human, Thomas A. Anderson had tried to take that from him when he destroyed him. Smith had returned, faster, stronger, and in a veritable multitude the last time they'd fought. Yet the more Smith managed to copy himself, the more his singularity of purpose increased, as if by multiplying himself he could affect his involvement in what had become a personal vendetta against _Mr. Anderson._

Smith clenched his fist as the recollection of the human in question upset his equilibrium, the knuckles clicking rhythmically with the small but powerful movement.

He had given Persis the very same thing. Purpose. And she had given him-

File: http//:www.persis_reciprocate.html/install

Open file?

Cancelled.

Smith wondered why the temptation to open the file was so strong.

She had given him solace, Smith reflected. Solace, and an answer to the question he'd put to her. He ran over the events that had occurred during his time spent with the human/agent hybrid. She'd instilled something, imprinted part of herself onto him that had made him more human, more able to reciprocate the emotions that she'd shown him, the complex nuances of the human character. She'd made him more vulnerable.

Yet, despite running several searches to prove to himself that the unexpected vulnerability had been a firmly negative development, the search results always contradicted this.

It appeared that despite this unwelcome weakness, the ability to feel and return emotions had stimulated an increase in his confidence, had aided him in understanding Persis better, on more levels, and, he admitted reluctantly, without the usual measure of disgust and revulsion he confronted most humans with.

Smith sighed softly, and retracted the breath as it became apparent that the sound produced was more than a little wistful. Persis. It seemed only logical that to further understand Agent Carlisle, his understanding of Persis would have to be reinstated, instead of remaining dormant, in his system. Perhaps it would aid him in his understanding of humans in general. Smith told himself that his reasons for opening the file were primarily to assess and enact the destruction of humans, particularly Anderson, through the insight the file would provide. However, his secondary reason was simply that he felt the urge to recall with full intensity, the sensation of having emotional range and ability.

Smith straightened his impossibly good posture and began.

File: http//:www.persis_reciprocate.html/install

Open file?

Confirmed.

Opening file...

persis_reciprocate.html/install

persis_emotionalcapability.html/upgrade

persis_gift.html/install

Processing other relevant documents...

persis_combat1.mov

persis_combat2.mov

persis_combat3.mov ... the list was extensive, Smith noted.

persis_expression1.mov

persis_expression2.mov ...this list went on into the hundreds.

And ultimately, the decision befell him.

File: http//:www.persis_reciprocate.html/install

Install file?

All related files will be duly processed and included in installation.

Searching for potential viruses...

Search Complete. No viruses detected.

Install?

Smith paused before the download would be set in motion, and then tensed in preparation.

Installation beginning...

Time remaining: Approximately one minute.

The installation increased in velocity, the enormous wealth of information flashing briefly, running through the items included before the action was completed.

Installation complete. 

********

Hermes was in a state of near hysteria, such was the elation and pride that swamped him the moment he reached the relative provacy of his cabin. He could be making the run to the dropoff in a matter of days. Days, he muttered to himself. He'd spent the morning engaging in as many training programmes as possible, seeking to hone his skills in combat and speed up his reaction times if the occasion ever arose for him to use them.

It would probably be a simple dropoff, though. Perhaps a routine package of information regarding sentinel activity on the surface would the item he'd deliver. Pity that it wouldn't be something more important, he thought, and then berated himself. Sentinel activity wasn't something to be taken lightly, and from the last documents sent by the doomed Osiris, the activities of the machines seemed more relevant by the hour.

But still, now the captain saw fit for him to really become one of the crew. He would be going in. Again. But this time, the decisions would be up to him.

The only person's back he'd be covering would be his own.

Hermes gave a muted whoop and leapt onto his bunk, staring at the metal ceiling of his room. The next few days would seem like an eternity.

********

Smith pulled up in a black sedan, hands pinpointed in the required driving position, mirrors facing in directions, arranged to the millimetre.

Some things could never be forgotten. His agent habits were included in that list.

Carlisle stood, he noted, not without a small degree of impatience.

Smith killed the engine and paused before stepping out of the vehicle. He adjusted his tie. He shifted the tie pin a little further up the strip of material. And studied his own reflection in the rear view mirror.

The same apathetic face stared back at him, only this time, he was aware of the surge of feeling going on behind the cold eyes and the impenetrable features. The tips of his fingers began to exhibit signs of anticipation.

They tingled.

Smith perused his hands, spreading the fingers wide as he gazed at them. They were still firm, still powerful. Still capable of crushing a human's skull, of breaking every bone in a rebel's body. But that was not the sensation that his reopened file on Persis was intent on having his hands recall. Smith closed his eyes. It was truly amazing, that even here, sitting in the car alone, his hands could simulate the feeling of her hair in his grasp, of her skin beneath his, and with a potency that almost took his breath away-

Of her hand clasped in his.

The emotional joy ride his body was going through was almost overwhelming. Smith was beginning to doubt whether he would be capable of simply opening the door, let alone stepping out of the car and confronting her.

Or, at least, what was once Persis, and was now an agent. Agent Carlisle.

Smith frowned before adjusting his tie again and gripping the door handle in one hand. He silently prepared himself to see her, not with the distant attitude of an agent void of emotion, but with one of an agent who had known her before and who had _felt _what being with her had been like.

Freedom.

Smith opened the door and stepped out in one fluid movement, smoothing the front of his suit as he did so. Carlisle stood, distanced and motionless. The first time he had met her in this way, in this agent form, he had felt surprise, slight confusion, and anger. He had not been able to fully determine or understand the cause of the fury in him then. Now Smith knew.

What had they done to her? What had they done to the human?

His thoughts began to snap at each other's heels. She should have black hair, he practically fumed, black hair, dark eyes, dark like the void he was struggling to conceal in his system as he looked at her. Not this neutral, straight brown hair made to conform in its tight ponytail or the blue eyes, blue like his own that he knew hung frozen behind the dark glasses.

"You".

Her lips parted minimally as she spoke.

"Agent Carlisle".

Quickly, she turned her head sideways, pressing the ear piece to the side of her face as she received orders. Just as swiftly she turned back to him.

"We have pinpointed the location of the next targets. Two rebels, currently about to emerge onto a courtyard, situated-"

"Near Wells and Lake", he cut her off.

Her lips pressed together in reluctant affirmation.

Then they ran.

The two agents, at least, that's what they were to all appearances, sprinted from the meeting place, disregarding the car. They darted down the relatively quiet streets, turning each corner like finely honed racing bikes, all entered at angles designed to increase the velocity at which they ran.

Soon they emerged onto the aforementioned courtyard, which Smith acknowledged with a wince. From a window in the overlooking apartment building, he realised, he had watched as Persis had cut down three agents with the certitude and ease of a superbly designed killing machine, without so much as breaking a sweat. then, she had still been mostly human.

Ironic, that now the figure next to him _was nothing but_ a superbly designed killing machine. Nothing more.

The rebels soon ran into the light, obviously out of breath, looking in desperation for the exit they needed. One look at the two agents in front of them and the blood drained from their faces, though their expressions were hard to determine behind their customary shades.

One, boldly stepping forward, pulled out a gun as he turned and aimed straight at Carlisle's head, shouting at his compatriot to run.

Of course she dodged the onslaught of bullets, dodged them with an air of one who is standing still, though she twisted and split into many Carlisles from the waist up.

A thin smile appeared on her disinterested face.

She ran towards both humans, and then round them, at the last moment turning so that she spun in the air, avoiding a second hail of bullets. She landed, feet splayed, behind the first human and, lowering to a crouching position, spun again, her pointed foot tripping him up as she leapt to drop kick the second square in the chest. He dropped like a stone, and lay, gasping, spitting blood onto the concrete.

Smith could only watch as if frozen, as any shreds of hoped for humanity in Carlisle disappeared with the bullets that left her gun and peppered the back of the defenceless human on the ground. Turning her attention to the first, Carlisle lifted him up by his jacket collar, one handed. She squeezed the air from his lungs, her fist curling around his jugular before she threw him bodily against the wall. Drawing up her right arm she emptied the rest of the clip into him and watched impassive as he slid to the ground, the wall stained a dark red.

A spatter of blood was sprayed across her face. A few droplets slid down the lenses of her glasses.

Smith curled his hand into an iron fist. Enough was enough.

She had to be told. Reminded. 

When they reached the motorway footbridge, Smith had become resolute in his decision. He hit her as hard as he could as she walked in front of him, sending her soaring across the narrow pathway and into the handrail. When she made to rise he drew a bead fiercely and she lowered herself back down.

Something flashed across her face. Fear, and for a fleeting second she was Persis, staring up at him from the floor of a phone booth and cradling a receiver in her hands.


	9. The Footbridge

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately,I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**8. The Footbridge**

So there was still hope.

She stood up again. Smith remained at the other end of the footbridge. The only sound was that of the cars speeding down the motorway beneath them.

Smith walked towards her. The agent took a step back at his approach, but he remained a small yet neutral distance from her.

"You still remember. The construct couldn't separate you completely from what you'd experienced".

Carlisle's voice was cold, "Remember what?"

Smith grabbed her by the shoulders, "You were human once. You became a hybrid, a fusion of machine and human".

Carlisle laughed metallically.

"It appears that you have _more_ than one anomaly in your programming, _Smith_".

"Then we are both similarly flawed".

Carlisle scowled menacingly, but she knew that he was right. She just didn't like it.

"I may be flawed, Smith, but I know what the truth is".

"I'd forgotten how stubborn you were", Smith grinned.

"You didn't know me before, Smith".

"Are you so sure?"

Carlisle struck him with the dead force of her fist. Smith stepped back and sighed knowingly.

"Enough of the small talk, then, Miss. Carlisle".

Smith lashed out at her face, his arm swinging in a perfect arc at her jaw. Carlisle ducked the blow and began a brutal assault on his jaw, her arms repeatedly punching with the frightening speed of an agent, a speed only matched by Smith as he fended off her blows with similar ferocity and skill.

"_Agent_ Carlisle" she scowled. 

They fought tirelessly as the machines did, exchanging punch for punch, blow for blow, kick for kick.

Their fists circled in endless spheres, becoming blurs of white tipped knuckles. Carlisle leapt into the air and executed a sharp spin kick at Smith's head before landing perched on the narrow railing of the bridge.

She balanced calmly on the small surface area, cars rushing past at deadly speeds some feet below her.

Smith raised an expectant eyebrow.

"You can't beat me, Carlisle".

She frowned. Smith could almost sense the piercing look that she glared at him with from behind the dark lenses of her glasses.

"I was not programmed to destroy other agents".

Smith chuckled in spite of her tone, "Yes, but that's not what's stopping you from at least trying to...finish me off".

Carlisle blinked. Damn those memories that always emerged at the most inopportune moments. Those words were so familiar, so-it was a trick. He was tricking her, trying to make her more vulnerable so that he could attack her. The construct would not approve of her hesitation.

Carlisle jumped from the railing and descended from the space above Smith. She spun as she landed, kicking him squarely in the chest. She turned and backflipped, her feet kicking out at his head as she did so.

Standing up again, she drew out her gun and fired repeatedly. Smith dodged the onslaught of bullets with ease. He drew his and did likewise.

Carlisle dodged the oncoming bullets with similar detachment.

Till both their clips were empty.

She tossed her gun over the side of the bridge. Smith discarded his in the same fashion.

"I'd like to talk with you about something".

"We have nothing to discuss, Agent".

"Hmm".

"We _don't_".

There was a strain in her otherwise electronic voice. Something verging on desperation, as if she was trying to deny something she knew was true.

Smith noticed.

"You still have traces of memories, don't you? You can still recall images, fleeting

glimpses of people and events that happened before. You were not created by the construct. You were modified by it. They changed you, they made you into an almost complete sentient programme, but they couldn't erase everything you had once done, _isn't that correct_?"

Carlisle almost trembled. How did he know? How could Smith possibly know?

She still remembered. Faces. Feelings. Events. Words. Always the words.

"No. I recall no such things, Agent, and even if this were indeed possible, I have forgotten all these so called memories of which you speak". So she could lie, too.

Smith reached down for her hand and gripped it firmly in his, intertwining their fingers together.

"Maybe so. But you haven't forgotten this".

Smith pressed their palms closer together and let the file he had reopened copy into her system.

Carlisle froze. There _was _something familiar about that gesture, that bonding of hands. As if she had felt it before. Smith. She knew him. She had known him before. She had lived differently, she had been _alive _before, before she emerged into the Matrix as another agent, another machine. The thoughts gradually built up into a complex montage of memories that had previously been just fragments of images. A ship. The deck of a ship. Hers.

Her face took on a look of recognition.

Then the realisation hit her. It flooded through her like a tide of emotions and sensations.

She inhaled sharply.

Her hand, still in Smith's, began to glow around the tips of her fingers.

The power she used to have. That conflict in herself.

She had always been _alone_.

The previously still body encased in a pod miles away, on of millions in the human fields, began to stir. The machines had kept it alive, resuscitated it when it had fallen through the gaping hull of the ship Apollo, reprogrammed its memory, and attempted to recreate it as one of its own. An agent. Her past life blocked out.

But some things could never be forgotten.

Carlisle gripped Smith's hand tighter to aid the flow of memory. Yes, she thought, yes I want to remember who was the human was I her was I human before all this was I able to feel did I ever love anything-

And then, all at once:

Captain Persis of the Antigone reporting for duty..Priest, get the tail guns manned and quickly..Calyx are we online?..Seefa watch out for agents in there and be careful..Aei what the hell happened in there is everyone out..

..Calyx I need an exit...That was damn close, Sir..yes I know..you're an agent...nothing's inevitable...don't let me go this feels like I'm being torn..I feel corrupted...Persephone....how could you possibly understand Sol...thank you Titus...Now there's an emotion present that you can feel...you'll want to see me again Smith...Are you sure?...he's different, he's becoming more human...HE CAN'T LOVE YOU PERSIS!..HE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THE FIRST UNABLE TO EITHER!..Neso,...Please, Smith, don't...it's a shame I have to take it back..I'd wandered aimlessly without knowing..why I was here and you-

Carlisle closed her eyes in pain. It was overwhelming. From having no feelings to experiencing this blizzard of every human emotion possible was an almost unendurable pain. 

Pain. She'd known that before. Pain. Loss. Loneliness. Despair. Hope. Want. Guilt. Death. She'd known-

-CALYX PRIEST AEI SEEFA HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN CALYX HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN PRIEST AEI SEEFA HE'S A KILLER A KILLER AND SO ARE YOU SO ARE YOU PERSIS YOU'RE THE SAME AS EACH OTHER EVEN MORE SO NOW YOU'RE A KILLER YOU MURDERED YOUR CREW YOU BURIED THE ANTIGONE CAPTAIN PERSIS SMITH IS YOUR EQUAL YOU'RE PART OF HIM 

BOTH OF YOU YOU'RE LIKE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN JUST ADMIT IT PERSIS YOU LIKE HIM YOU THINK HE'S SOMETHING MORE THAN A MACHINE YOU THINK HE'S SPECIAL DIFFERENT YOU WANT TO FIGHT HIM

AGAIN BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU FEEL ALIVE IT MAKES YOU FEEL THAT YOU'RE NOT ALONE-

The suffering she'd undergone was so great.

She was Persis. Persis. She had killed everything she'd worked for. She'd lost everything. Because of Smith. 

The scene before her dimmed out and suddenly she was encased in a pod filled with a grotesque pinkish gelatin substance. She pressed frantically against the unforgiving sides of the transparent prison, registering the horrible truth that the machines had kept her alive, prolonging her existence to continue their experiment. She looked wildly around her and saw the millions of humans similarly caged, slaves to the Matrix.

She fell onto one knee, still holding onto Smith's hand as if her life depended on it. Ironic, she considered, given that she had been dead for years.

"Agent Carlisle", Smith's voice had a questioning air.

She pushed him away and stumbled against the railing before gradually rising. 

She pulled her shades from her face and threw them over the side of the bridge to be crushed by the cars below. The sights and images of the scene before her returned.

"I-I.."

"-I was- I'm not an agent I'm not an agent I'm still human Smith what have they done to me what-"

She collapsed to the ground. Smith realised that tears were running down her face as if for the first time in years, a look of intense anguish imprinted on it.

"WHY AM I STILL HERE?? I WAS DEAD I WAS DEAD, SMITH WHY DID THEY BRING ME BACK WHY DID THEY DO IT? I WAS DEAD I HAD-I HAD DONE ENOUGH I WAS-I WAS-"

Her voice trailed off from the tearing, broken cry.

Smith walked to her and helped her up. She was weak now, and clung to him as if for comfort.

"Alive".

His voice comforted her, calmed her. She inhaled slowly.

"Why Smith, why? I was human, I was no use to them.."

Smith shook his head. "I don't know".

Persis looked at him. "I can't do this anymore".

The agent nodded. 

Persis gently pulled his sunglasses off. She looked into his eyes as if for the first time. That day on the roof. She could almost feel the breeze that had fanned her face.

"What_ do_ you want?"

She smiled through the painful tears at him, the dried blood of the rebels she'd killed running in rivulets down her cheeks.

"Too much, it seems".

And with that she turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could away from him, ran away from the bridge, away from what she couldn't face and disappeared in the distance.

********


	10. Responsible

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**9. Responsible**

Persis fled the footbridge as if the Matrix itself was closing in on her, snapping at her heels like some malevolent dog, monstrous in its invisibility.

She'd been dead, and it had, just as she had thought on the footbridge, seemed like she had been so for years. 

She might as well have been.

When she reached the city centre, she stopped and considered. Like a horrendous nightmare relived in the light of day, she realised that just days before, she had been in the same room as the very programme whose twisted experiment was the cause of all the chaos that had happened up until now.

Persephone.

There was something about that face. That much she'd already known, even when, she inwardly cursed, as an agent, she'd exchanged less than words with the programme at the mansion that she and the Merovingian occupied. Bored intelligence in lavish surroundings.

Boredom. That was at the root of it, it seemed. Persis ran over the details that her extensive files covered (at least one good thing happened through becoming an agent-she had access to data that could assist Zion). Zion, God but it seemed like hypocrisy to even think about it now. She shook her head.

Persephone and Merovingian. 

Hovering within the Matrix like stagnant clouds of disease, amusing themselves via any means that took their liking. Boredom that reduced Merovingian, a once and still powerful programme to getting his kicks from willing humans in ladies' washrooms. Boredom, perhaps combined with neglect, that instilled in Persephone a need to ruin every other form of intelligence's chance of having normality and that sly creature, what was her name? Happiness. Ruthlessly teasing those at a tactical disadvantage to her, and thwarting her, the lab freak, the hybrid's chance of possessing it in her meaningless little existence. 

Persis struggled to remember that well known human phrase, and then succumbed to searching her database again.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold".

She adjusted the tie that never needed adjusting and set off, back in the direction of the mansion, every step a ringing reminder that the construct owned her, could see her, and would probably stop her. Deletion was a word, a prospect more empty and terrifying than human death. Now it wasn't just agents, or sentinels, or other rebels after her. The construct would try to stop her, everything in the Matrix would likely be changed to prevent her continuing. It really was her against the world.

********

Persephone lounged pointedly in the smooth leather armchair in her husband's library. The entity in question paced the Turkish rug sprawled on the polished floor, every now and again muttering exclamations in French at the curvaceous form of his wife.

"Gods, woman-what were you thinking, giving the Keymaker to that-that-_imbecile? _Have you any idea what this could do to me? They were in my house, Persephone, those insipid humans-"

Persephone sighed musically as Merovingian cursed again. Wiping your arse with silk, he'd called it then, and she inwardly snorted. It had been an almost immeasurable amount of time since her husband's addresses to her had not consisted of curses and empty threats. She remembered what it had been like when they'd first come here. Oh, but he'd been so different then. She had remained the same, a little less forgiving, a touch more antagonistic, maybe; still provocative in word, deed and appearance.

Merovingian stopped pacing, mid-step, as the door to the library opened.

"What is it now?" he demanded impetuously of the equally simple guards that replaced those that Persephone had neatly dispatched via a gun produced from her purse. That had been some time ago, and yet he still raged about her betrayal of him, betrayal made for the sake of one kiss. A kiss? What was the woman capable of doing for less trivial exchanges?

The door swung wide and the stolid body of the first guard slumped onto the floor, soon followed by another. Persephone looked up in bemused interest.

Persis stood, framed by the rectangular doorframe, a gun in her hand. Her face immobile, impassive, unreadable. Her meticulous appearance resumed. Her lips held in a thin line. Control in dark glasses. 

Merovingian blanched at the presence of an agent in his home who stood dangerously close to invading his personal space. 

He glanced at Persephone.

"This is obviously your concern; the result of yet another ridiculous betrayal of my trust-I hope your experiment backfires on you, my love!"

With that he leapt to the side door and retreated behind it, seeking safety in other rooms, other places that the mansion's doors led to. Persis neglected to watch him leave with pointed indifference. She turned her attention to Persephone.

She had never liked that face. Beautiful, yes, very; but there had always been an aura of untrustworthiness about it, for all its aesthetic charms.

"Well, it seems that the agent has returned. What can I do for you, Agent - Agent Carlisle, is it?"

Mocking in its subtlety. Persis did not appreciate the joke. She replaced her gun in its holster, acknowledging its familiar weight and shape under her jacket.

"Have you ever had a dream that you woke up from, but then discovered was real?"

Persephone smiled smoothly, her perfect mouth tilting upwards at the corners.

"I didn't know that agents were capable of dreaming".

She uncrossed and then recrossed her legs, smiling winningly. Persis internally gagged at the notion that Persephone was behaving in a flirtatious manner towards her. She stepped forward, and watched her own aura fill up the spacious room with steely authority.

"You know why I'm here, _Persephone_".

"Ahhh", the sound escaping her lips like a whisper of promise, "you have woken up".

"I have woken up-", Persis stepping closer with every tightly vehement statement, "after losing my entire crew and my ship and discovering that I'd been tampered with like an exploratory test, an experiment. I have woken up-", she stood in front of the seated figure, "to find myself imprisoned inside the strands of a programme that, as a human, I, by natural law, hate and revile with a fear born out of comprehension, woken up to find that I have killed and tortured my own kind, people I fought alongside. I have woken up-", the volume building in her throat, words being spat towards Persephone;

"-to find that the only entity in this simulated world that is as human, and perhaps more so than I am is _another agent"._

"Surely finding one like to yourself is more of a comfort, no?" the amused programme taunted. Persis removed her dark glasses and held them in a steady palm.

"And do you know what the most sickening, twisted and blackly ironic thing about my waking up is?"

Persephone smiled like a smug cat with a mouthful of bloodstained feathers.

"It was all because of you, a programme I never met when I was fully human, and only just encountered as an agent. You, it's all because of your pathetic self-pity born out of what? Of boredom in a simulated palace? Of neglect by a contemptuous snake of a husband? Or because you simply had nothing better to continue existing or avoiding deletion for but to live up to the reputation of the electronically created poison you are?"

The smile on Persephone's face contorted with every rhetorical question until it bared its teeth at Persis in a feral hiss. She stood up abruptly, as if stung.

"How dare you. How dare you come into my house and insult me. You know nothing about me", her finger pointed accusingly, "nothing. You cannot comprehend my existence in this place. You cannot begin to understand what this is like, how I've felt, to have power and yet have none at all".

The beautiful face seeped spite and repressed anger from every digital pore, and slowly, all anger that had built up inside Persis softened and changed to pity and slight revulsion at the pathetic, hypocritical programme before her. She spoke quietly.

"_I_ cannot understand _you_? I am just like another programme now. You made me, Persephone. You corrupted me. You had no right to play with my existence, with my future. But I _pity_ you all the more".

Persis placed her sunglasses in the womanly hand that had pointed at her.

"You are responsible now, Persephone. Responsible for everything I do after this moment. Remember that".

Persis turned away from the stunned but volatile creature and made for the door. When she reached the frame she turned back, hit by a sudden thought, and drawing a bead, punched Persephone full in the face with alarming speed and efficiency, in one, minimal movement. Persephone stumbled to the floor, grasping the armchair behind her, a trembling hand reaching tentatively for her bloody nose, showing up grotesquely in her classically moulded face.

"One more thing. _You_ cannot begin to understand how good that felt".

She left the mansion, waving off the straggling guards who came scrambling down the stairs at their mistress's impassioned cry.


	11. We've Been Here Before

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Thank you thank you thank you to the following people: alocin, Exobiologist, Selina Enriquez and sway653. You remain endearingly supportive of my little writing sprees-Hope you enjoy the update,

Morithil.

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**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**10. We've Been Here Before**

Smith closed his eyes briefly. Accessing databases, he concluded that what she needed was time. Time to accept what had happened to her, time to accept the work she had done for the Mainframe, which contradicted everything she had spent her human existence fighting for.

She had run away from him without a word as to where she was going. 

Smith knew. After opening the file within himself that he had so vigorously denied the existence of, he knew where she was. He half smiled with the beginnings of amusement and understanding. It seemed that she would return to a place which held emotional significance to her, a trait that most humans seemed to possess, to relive events already over, a masochistic method of healing the past.

He walked off the bridge and in the direction of where the sedan was parked,

He had passed_ that_ place numerous times since Persis had-ceased to exist. Such a bland, nondescript piece of architecture, but already he was experiencing a wave of affection towards it-no, not the structure itself; but what had taken place within.

A motel on the other side of town.

Odd, he mused; already he was having trouble associating himself with the programme that had been disgusted at the smallest amount of contact with a human.

Smith was beginning to acknowledge the extent to which he had become involved with Persis, and he was not even remotely disgusted with the memory.

********

Persis, as she now realised she was, broke open the blue door of the motel room with a ferocity born of despair and almost uncontrollable angst. A door further down the walkway opened, and the somewhat irate figure of the owner, complete with shirt the colour of dirty laundry and miserable cigar in one hand stuck his head around the opening.

"What the hell do you think you're-"

Persis pulled herself together without thinking and gave him the most convincing performance of her so called life.

She flashed the badge.

Told him his own name.

Gave him a list of reasons why the Government required the room for surveillance purposes.

Challenged him to challenge her authority.

By the end the motel owner had apologised profusely, if a little grudgingly, and had retreated in fear to the relative safety of his living area.

Persis swallowed a sob and walked in, closing the door and absorbing the soft, worn texture of the carpet beneath her feet.

Funny, how when she had been an agent, even when she had been fully human, she had never quite fully appreciated the little details of sensation. A soft carpet beneath your feet, a smooth work surface polished to perfection, the feeling of a hand in yours.

She had not clasped anyone's hand in a long time. Too long.

She examined the room, the same neutral decor, the same past it furniture, the same bed, or at least one very similar to it. Clean sheets. The window was closed. She swivelled round to confront the mirror and more besides.

An agent stared back at her. The perfectly cut suit, the same nondescript hair, quietly imposing aura, deadpan mouth and strikingly blue eyes, not a trembling, weak blue, but a defiant, hard tint like colour of ice covered rocks on a sea swept coast. If she hadn't filled these firm vessels with disbelieving tears and if her body hadn't been shaking with each drawn out breath, she would have been nothing more than a programme, nothing more than the ghost of her memory would allow. An agent's eyes looked out from her face. She'd seen herself through Smith's eyes the moment their hands had linked and he'd transferred the file on her to her own system. Now the system was fading, and the human she once was strained to break the surface.

Persis felt the sharp need to sit down but fought it and stood, uneasily, staring herself in the face and resisting the urge to punch a hole through the mirror and into the next room. 

Agent Carlisle. The Mainframe must have had a twisted sense of A.I. humour to assign her the name she had been "born" with when she had entered the Matrix. Why didn't they just call her goddamn Agent Persis and laugh behind their simulated hands at the not so pleasant irony.

Since running like a madwoman off the bridge she hadn't thought about Smith. Now he was everywhere and threatening to drive her even more insane than her recovered memory was. Love opened a dying crack in her chest and Persis winced at the thoughts of tabooed gestures, the stigma of being attached to a programme and blatantly sensual contact of skin upon simulated skin. Warmth; that was what had originally drawn her to Smith. He had always, if subconsciously and with no small degree of annoyance, emitted warmth. Warmth, that she, even when human, had never felt before.

She really had been alone for a long, long time.

Persis forced a painful laugh through gritted teeth. Strange and beautiful, that an agent with distinctly human attributes and a human with distinctly agent mannerisms should end up together. Strange and beautiful.

When Smith silently opened the door she was standing with her back to him, facing the slightly claustrophobic space before her and looking at the sunlight coming through the closed window. He closed the door and felt the latch click. The mechanical sound echoed in the stillness.

"Who are you?"

Her head moved slightly. Her voice came out, despite being raw with emotion, sounding dead like his own.

"I'm not sure anymore".

Smith stepped towards her slim figure.

"Your name is Persis".

"It was".

"It still is".

"I'd forgotten". A trace of bitterness in the remark cut him, and Smith marvelled at the pain.

"Say it".

"Why".

"Tell me who you are".

"I don't know anymore".

Still not looking at him. She still refused to give herself another reason to cry. Smith walked up to her and stood, so close behind her she could feel his breath at her neck and he could smell the perfume of her hair. He felt her tense without touching her and all chances of disgust and revulsion at the human resurfacing were suppressed as he studied the woman before him.

"You are Persis, formally captain of the Antigone-"

"_Don't say that name; don't mention that ship_-" strangled words between gritted teeth.

Smith continued, his hand travelling millimetres above her skin, up the outline of her arm, the air pulsing with electricity.

"-rebel fighter, _human_, strong; physically as well as mentally, and-"

He paused, his hand hovering above her left shoulder. The thunder of a heartbeat furiously beating in a small room deafening.

"-_mine"._

The word came loaded with heavy want, possession and surprising sincerity.

Smith's hand came down on her shoulder with assuring weight. Persis spun round and her mouth met his in a desperate kiss. Hands, firm but searching, wanting to be everywhere at once, both of them tangled in each other, the silk of a tie, the flutter of an eyelash, fingers running through each other's hair. Smith wound his fingers round the unforgiving ponytail of her hair and snapped the band, the recently brown, impossibly straight hair flooding into his searching palms. In between the intense kisses and touches seeking to relieve the pent-up feelings that had been before, Persis gasped out what he had asked her to say.

"I _am_ Persis, I _am _Persis ... _I missed you". _

A hand grasping a tie, role reversal as Smith pulled her in closer to him, forgetting the Matrix for the second time in all his existence.

_"God, Smith, I missed you_".

One arm round her waist, the other clasping her hand to his. A drawled reply.

"I missed _you_".

He led her to the bed this time, but Persis met him halfway and they descended onto the indifferent sheets. 

Hard won determination and awakening shone out from her eyes as they looked down on him. Surfacing from another drawn out, probing kiss, Persis' face was like one emerging from a bad dream and realising she was awake, with the nightmare over.

"Show me what it's like to be alive again".


	12. The Unspoken Word

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: ** Updates as promised. Let me know what you think!

Again, thanks for the support,

Morithil.

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**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**11. The Unspoken Word**

Smith struggled to form a sentence as Persis breathed in his ear. After labouring to hold onto a stream of coherent thought, the sentence (to his credit) came as always, perfectly executed and articulated.

"Theoretically, I wouldn't know how to replicate such an experience, _Persis_, as I do not live as you would define the word".

"That makes two of us".

Smith traced the line of her arched eyebrow with an index finger.

"Why do humans feel the need to identify or otherwise attach themselves to others?"

Persis draped herself over him, laying her head on his chest, over his heart, listening to the artificially created noise of a heart that didn't pump real blood. 

"It makes us feel that we're not alone".

The former agent pondered this carefully, stroking the tendrils of hair that were beginning to-what was the word humans used?-_tickle _his neck. An absurd sounding word, but one that made sense of what it described. It echoed the situation he was currently in; a former agent with a being that was not entirely human, an absurd situation, but one that for some reason that no database could explain, one that made perfect sense.

He motioned for Persis to rise.

He sat up on the bed and faced her across the tousled sheets.

He told her that she belonged to him, that she was his. 

She smiled and remarked that he sounded like a jealous human lover.

Smith told her that he wasn't jealous or human.

Persis raised an eyebrow.

Smith quietly smirked at his newly acquired mastery of the unspoken word.

They sat for a few seconds, just looking at one another, by defacto law bitter enemies, complete opposites of each other. In reality, two entities imprinted onto each other, who when they looked at the being before them saw shades of themselves.

Then Persis shifted up the bed and laid down beside Smith, lying on her side. The agent imitated her movements, and they remained, completely still, hand clasped in hand, hard, blue eyes gazing seriously into their twins. Moments passed.

"Welcome back", Smith murmured in low undertones.

Persis sat up again and moved across the bed, seemingly to drape her body over his again, but at the last moment sat up, straddling the agent beneath her. She looked down at his face, to the unseeing eye still the same impenetrable expression, the hard nosed demeanour. She saw the little nuances. The glittering in his eyes, the almost imperceptible hint of vulnerability. The slight relaxation in his muscles. Persis placed a wandering hand on his chest. She saw everything.

"Things have changed since I was gone".

Her fingers ran over the line of buttons centred on the perfectly starched shirt.

Smith nodded, his body temperature slowly rising at her touch.

"I don't even look the same anymore. I don't feel as human. I've effectively been an agent for so long it's as if everything was a dream".

"Agents do not dream, Persis. Humans do. Trust in that to convince yourself of who and what you are".

Persis took in a conscious breath and began with difficulty, "I - I missed you, Smith. Even though I didn't even remember who you were, its as if something was always missing, like an error in my programming. Something Morpheus once said, about a splinter in your mind".

"Hmm". She grinned at his neutral reply before growing sombre again. Her mouth ached from smiling; a gesture she hadn't made in a while.

"You were the splinter, Smith. You let me know something wasn't right".

The automatic arch of his eyebrow.

"And you, _Miss. Carlisle_, are the constant thorn in my side".

A playfully carnal twist to her smile, followed by a wince.

"Perpetually reminding me of all my failings and shortcomings as an emotionless, killing machine, a sentient programme plagued by-"

"Unwelcome emotions?"

"The majority, yes. However, by some minute percentage-"

Her hand shifted and two elegant digits slipped inside the seams between buttons, grazing the skin underneath. Smith's low intake of breath and the equally deep growl that followed like the strains of a bass in a symphony heard after years in a world without music.

Smith grasped her questing hand and placed it at his shirt collar. Persis wrapped her fingers round it and pulled him up to her so she could taste him again.

********

Persis had practically yanked Smith up from his reclined position, fingers wrenched around his shirt collar. Something in her had felt overcome with the previously small, now burgeoning desire to convince herself that she was back - again, she thought with the returning dry sense of humour she'd once had-and if Smith was willing to be the catalyst to reverting back to her more human self, than she welcomed it.

Smith had placed a firm hand, fingers splayed, across the base of her spine as she ground herself against him, seeking, it appeared, the fusion between them triggered by interlocking hands. Somewhere during the course of those numerous hours spent indulging in, and reminding themselves of, the baser, human responses to the touch of each other's skin, Persis had sworn that Smith trembled.

If he had indeed trembled, he'd soon recovered and, with no small contribution from herself, proceeded to drive them both over the edge, pushing towards sensory overload.

Nerve endings crackled and gladly self combusted.

After each blaze had reduced to a smouldering ash which still hinted at igniting again, they had simply lain there, staring at each other. They finally reclined, sated, but not remotely exhausted. In the last slow, hungry dance, they'd alternated leadership without a single word. She really did see everything, her human perception of the intangible coupled with a sentient programme's judgements on the more obvious. Smith was the same now, she thought, the same as her. He fingered a lock of her hair between thumb and forefinger, still looking in her eyes.

"You are able to close them, you know".

She smiled wanly at this remark. _This_ was different; Smith not threatening her with a gun as they lay on the bed, as he had the last time. This was new, Smith offering _her _the chance to relax. Persis wondered if he'd watch her as she slept, and decided that it was not something she'd dwell on. At the mearest inclination that he'd do so, she knew the stimuli would provoke more painful tears. She didn't want that. Simply crying was more exhausting than any activity she'd engaged in recently. Her tear ducts were beginning to smart from the intense wake up call they'd received.

Although the situation they'd landed themselves in again was perhaps more volatile than the last time around, she thought, this time she welcomed the vulnerability their unions revealed in both of them.

Persis slipped her arms into the sleeves of a shirt before wrapping it round herself-she didn't know or care whether it was hers or Smith's- and slowly closed her eyes.

Let me forget what I've done for a few hours, she begged whatever gods were listening. Let me refrain from being a murderer for a while. Let me rest. 

Smith remained alert, deconstructing the small, soft breaths she took into her lungs and remainingly ever watchful, like a benevolent guardian keeping both eyes on his charge, his stern face a warning to those who might disturb her from the forgiveness she found in rest.

********

When morning arrived, it found them in a similar arrangement, Persis facing Smith as they lay still on the now made bed. Smith had resumed his customary attire, the suit perfectly clothing his body. Persis had also dressed, but was still deliberating whether to complete the uniform with the tie she held in one hand. Would doing so mean accepting what she had been? Would it go against what she intended to do in order to make up for her crimes against Zion?

Zion.

She looked at her hands. Why did it still feel as if they were someone else's? She trembled slightly, and slipped one inside her jacket pocket. Her fingers closed round the rims of the disc still lying dormant at the bottom of the lined pocket.

She had to do something. She did not want to decipher the disc's contents herself. In fact she did not want to make any move associated with the agent she had effectively been. She needed to contact the rebels.

Persis did not know if Smith would allow her to aid Zion.

But Neo might.

Persis withdrew her hand from the pocket and drew the programme next to her closer, if only to convince herself that he was still there.


	13. You Weren't Invited

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Wow…what a response to the last chapter!

alocin- You're still following the story, huh…What a compliment! That's dedication…

Aoden Half-Elven- Great name-excellent, another LOTR fan reading my fanfic! I hate Spongebob Squarepants too! Your comic sounds like the perfect revenge-go Smith!

Exobiologist- *winks back meaningfully*

Selina Enriquez- Hey girl! Glad to know you approved of the last chapter…^_~

Sway653- Ah, my LOTR/Matrix/Anime compatriot. Enough said, really. ^^

moonwalker-Glad you find the story interesting despite not really liking female agents…all I can say is; well, Persis isn't _entirely _an agent…

Thanks for the feedback,

Morithil.

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**12. You Weren't Invited.**

Persis was spared the dilemma of wondering what to do next when the door burst open and Johnson, followed by two other agents, stood menacingly in the doorway, as if drinking in the scene before them.

Greedily.

Persis sat up on the bed and stood up near the foot of it, staring silently back at the trio in front of her. Johnson glanced towards the earpiece and its pack lying removed on the bed. His gaze switched to Smith, who by this time had also risen and was scowling at the agents in the doorway with a look that could have reduced anything combustible to a pile of ash.

The other two agents looked quizzically at the pair standing together.

"The agent has become detached from the system"

"Yes"

"It has developed emotions"

"Yes"

"It remains partly yet irrevocably-"

Johnson cut in.

"_Only_ human"

"It has been fraternising with the rogue programme"

Smith's eyes narrowed to slits.

"You weren't invited".

Persis froze, her feet unable to move from the space of carpet beneath them. She could feel the gun in its holster snugly held against her side, and yet she was unable to move. Along with her memory, her previous fear of the sentient programmes had also resurfaced and she was rendered almost immobile.

Smith turned to her questioningly. He was unable to comprehend why she had not already drawn her weapon and attacked the agents standing in the room. She was more than able to neutralise them, this he knew. Why did she hesitate?

Johnson pulled his gun from under his jacket, the other agents imitating his movement.

Smith glowered and, throwing himself on the floor, rolled rapidly in a surprisingly graceful move across the floor, rising in front of the agents and plunging his fist deep into Johnson's torso. The upgrade shivered and twitched uncontrollably before he was engulfed in the black liquid rivulets and there were suddenly two Smiths standing, armed and ready in the small motel room.

The copy made short work of the second agent, who was being neatly dispatched via a swift succession of iron punches, which would undoubtedly be followed by a bullet in the head.

The third turned his attention to Persis.

I was one of them, she thought dazedly, I was just like them. Machines. Emotionless. She was still standing, silent with the horror of accepting what she had been, when the third agent turned his gun to Smith, who was aiding the copy in disposing of the second upgrade.

Persis jerked out of her stupor and leapt into action.

She launched herself into the air, slowing down as she reached the peak of her leap, time standing as immobile as she had been, leaving her suspended and slowly circling in mid air.

She spun quickly, her leg flying out in a sharp kick and catching the agent full in the face, sending him staggering backwards. She landed, kicking out again at his unprotected ankles, sending him down.

Persis picked him up bodily with one ruthless fist and threw him against the wall before reaching quickly, so quickly it was imperceptible, for her gun and emptying her clip with no small degree of relish into the upgrade at point black range. Green lightning crackled over him, revealing the body he had taken in the Matrix.

Persis looked away, momentarily blinded. Sparks before her eyes.

When she looked back at the human body, riddled with bullets, she swallowed a sob. She closed her eyes, and suddenly she was back in that courtyard, and peppering the helpless body of a rebel in a similar, if not identical fashion. Blood on her face. She was responsible for him, for them. For all the people she'd eliminated in the Matrix, potential rebels, targets of the resistance. Hackers. People she might have fought with in a different time and place. 

She owed Zion. She owed Zion a lot of lives. She saw the faces of those she'd killed float up between her and the corpse on the floor.

She acknowledged the wave of nausea building up in her throat. Smith walked over to her, the copy already gone, vanished out into the Matrix through the open door.

"Miss Carlisle".

That much loved warmth and the promise of comfort in his voice. Persis turned dully away. She didn't deserve comfort for all she'd done. The gun in her hand dropped from her relaxed fingers. Like lightning she stooped and caught it before it hit the floor, millimetres from the carpet. She replaced the weapon in its leather holster. So like an agent.

She avoided Smith's searching look and ran to the tiny bathroom, slamming the door as she confronted her reflection in the cracked mirror. She leant on the sink, glaring at the image. Methodically she turned on the taps and moved her hands under the stream of water in a detached fashion before lifting them to her face and splashing her skin with the cool liquid. Her hands faltered and shifted over her eyes to blind her from the truth of what she had done. She'd disposed of two agents in the same way she'd coldly murdered two humans only recently. All this after mentally promising to avoid acting like the agent she had been. Persis sank to the floor in stages, curled into a ball on the cool tiles that surrounded her, crying silently as a tomb.

She had defended Smith from the upgrade. She had vowed to help Zion, and she'd defended Smith. A sentient programme, one who was intent on destroying Neo, perhaps Zion's last hope. Persis wondered what she was really defending.

He's different. He's not like the others. He's becoming more human.

But what are you becoming, Persis? she asked herself. What have you become?

********

Smith closed the useless door. It had been partly torn off its hinges and swung at a crazy angle, but it seemed only right to at least attempt to restore it to its natural position.

He paused at the bathroom door. Smith folded his hands behind his back and shifted uneasily. This was yet another new sensation. He was unsure of how to proceed. She was much affected by the fight and the acceptance of what she had done as an agent. Smith cleared his throat. He was uncertain of what he was meant to do. She had turned away before he could offer any form of comfort or reassurance. Did that mean that she was not in need of either? He doubted this. Yet, if she had needed him, surely that would negate the fact that she would tell him so?

Smith brought his hands back to his sides. Humans were so full of contradictions. Persis was riddled with them, and yet-the former agent sighed-he was not exasperated or even frustrated by her reactions. Smith realised that he had readily accepted them. That old empty feeling stirred in him again. He needed to see her, to be with Persis in order to make the emptiness go away. 

He placed a steady hand on the door handle and slowly opened it.

Persis was still crouched on the floor in a foetal position, leaning against the bathtub, her arms wrapped around her knees, which were drawn up against her chin. She was looking blankly at the tiled floor. Smith closed the door behind him and stood over her slender form.

"Persis".

She winced at the name.

"Smith", her voice flat, small in the closet-like space.

The former agent swallowed. Another sensation, one that accompanied the emptiness inside him. He was unable to conclude if it was pity or sorrow. Smith made a mental note to ask her when this was over.

"You should not remain here. The surface of the floor is cold, and there is a sufficient draft present due to the uneven base of the door".

Smith noticed that the sentence sounded clinical, even to him.

"I can't live with myself, Smith".

"I am afraid that there is no alternative to doing so, _Miss. Carlisle_". He fell back into addressing her formally, determined to rouse her from her inertia.

Persis tried to laugh. The only sound that escaped was grim and forced through gritted teeth. Her face and hands were slightly damp and cool.

Smith crouched down until he was on eye level with her. He lifted a hand to place on her knee. Persis shook her head slowly.

"No, Smith, don't-"

He persisted, drawing closer to her and reaching for her hands. Persis fought him off, shaking her head vehemently, protesting in half formed sentences. Smith grabbing her flailing arms by the wrists and held them back, her fists clenched near either side of her head, pinned up against the side of the bath.

"Don't argue, Miss Carlisle".

Their faces so close they were very nearly touching.

Her eyes narrowed. Persis attempted to appear resolute.

"I don't need this, Smith".

He savoured the remark. He did not wish to see her like this, sounding and appearing lifeless, void of the controlled ferocity and dry wit he was familiar with. Smith seconded the statement.

"Neither do I".

He pressed his mouth to hers, revelling in the solace he found in trying to give her the same. Slowly Persis began to respond to him.

He relinquished the hold he had on her wrists as she repressed a dry sob and dived into his embrace, wrapping her arms so tightly around him in staggered, broken movements he briefly thought she might be trying to break him in two. Smith lowered his arms and, placing them gently on her hips, pulled her closer to him so he could return the action.

Smith ran his hand through her hair almost absent mindedly as he lowered his mouth to hers again. He did not need this. However, it appeared that he needed Persis.

And the feeling seemed to be mutual.


	14. Persis Shows Her Hand

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **

****

alocin- Why would I ever want to even consider getting rid of such a helpful reviewer and writer?

Aoden Half-elven-You put me on your Favourites list! *looks flattered*

Exobiologist- Haha, yes I did get rid of Johnson rather quickly there, didn't I? And yes, I have read Conversations With Smith ^^

Selina Enriquez-Hey, which Moby track were you listening to while reading it? ^_~

****

****

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**13. Persis Shows Her Hand.**

Persis warily replaced the earpiece into her left ear and allowed the stream of information to flow into her now human consciousness. She sighed as she withdrew the tool and placed it back down on the roof of the car next to the sedan she'd driven to the meeting point.

Hours earlier she'd slipped from the motel room and a motionless Smith, experimenting with the adoption of human sleeping patterns. He looked different while he was sleeping, well, attempting to recreate the experience of sleeping, at least. He looked human. He looked relaxed, peaceful. It had been nearly impossible to leave him but still, still she'd made her way to the nearest phone booth. She'd made the call and now the time had come.

It was time to put all her cards on the table.

She walked slowly across the street and stood half in, half out of the relative shadow of the looming building on the corner of the junction. Persis sighed gently, also experimenting with readjusting to her human mannerisms. 

It was still dark and early morning, 2:36am to be preci- stop it Persis, you're not an agent anymore, she countered herself. That was not you. Don't keep acting like it was. She looked up with a jerk.

"You wanted to see me".

A human stood before her. He was tall, dark haired and had a slight androgynous quality to him. The long lines of his black fitted coat with its almost mandarin collar whispered along the ground as he stepped forward into the pool of light created by a lone streetlamp.

Neo.

"Thank you for coming".

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now".

Persis nodded. She'd been expecting that.

"I'll do just that if your friends would stop lurking in the shadows and show themselves. Besides", and here she smiled a little bleakly, "it's not as if I'm unable to see them".

Slowly, the regal and imposing physique of Morpheus and the compact but graceful figure of Trinity revealed themselves. Both were heavily armed. Persis nodded courteously at both of them.

"Morpheus, Trinity".

There was something of a quiet sadness in Morpheus' expression as he returned the gesture at the image of the captain he'd vaguely known as Persis of the Antigone. There was a steely toughness and suspicion in Trinity's face. Persis reached into her jacket and immediately both swung their machine guns up into firing positions.

Persis stopped.

"Proof of my good intentions".

She pulled out her gun and threw it casually to fall in the gutter. Neo straightened at the movement. It was so like Smith's motion when he'd discarded his weapon in the underground station where they'd fought. But then Persis was Smith, effectively. She was the result of the agent being imprinted onto her. He could see the codes.

"You want a reason, here's the one I've got. I have been an agent, for all intents and purposes as you well know. You also know I was human before my unfortunate transformation. My memory and almost all recollections of who I was were erased by the Matrix. They've recently been returned to me".

"By who?" Neo questioned.

Persis looked at him meaningfully.

"Smith".

Morpheus and Trinity exchanged looks.

Neo shook his head.

"Impossible. Smith would never do something to-"

"Aid a human?", Persis cut in, "because he's a sentient programme, void of emotion and generally in contempt of all non-machine related life forms? Smith is different, Neo, and I am willing to bet that you already know this".

His silence confirmed her theory.

"You're running out of time. It will not be long before the sentinel army reaches the point where it is capable of launching a full on attack on Zion. I don't need to prove how reliable my sources are concerning that. Some time ago a young rebel was killed trying to reach an exit. She was carrying a disc of great importance to the resistance, regarding the project only known as the Exodus".

Trinity lowered her machine gun and flipped on the safety.

"I remember hearing about that. It could be the only other deciding factor in this war aside from Neo".

The One turned towards his lover with a bemused expression on his face.

"No pressure there, Trin".

"Sorry", the woman smiled back.

Persis nearly smiled at the affection the two showed towards each other, and then stopped herself when it provoked thoughts of Smith. Would he ever accept what she was doing? No, Persis, consider what's at stake here.

She held up the tiny disc in one hand. All three figures moved in a unanimous intake of breath.

"I am in possession of the disc. It was I who elimi-", Persis's features contorted into a grimace as she cut herself short, "killed the girl. I'm asking you now what the disc holds that is so vital".

Morpheus stepped slightly forward. Her guilt seemed genuine.

"It is believed that the disc contains the information to destroy the Matrix, a part of the machines' master plan to destroy and then recreate the Matrix after a certain number of years, decades."

"A kind of self destruct mechanism, if you will", volunteered Neo.

As the two men filled her in on the purpose and activation rules of the disc Persis took in the information in total silence. She fingered the disc carefully before looking up at the One. Her decision lay before her. She made it.

"I'm asking you to let me activate the Exodus from within the Matrix. You are aware that it needs to be set in motion this way. It cannot be started in the Real World. From what you have told me, I gather that once made active, the disc needs an entity to act as the weapon of destruction, if you will", she looked at Neo, who seemed almost curious, "through which the Matrix will be destroyed. This means a living entity. The risks are high. From what you've found out, it is not known whether the person acting as the weapon would be subject to the destruction as well. Its obvious that your talents wil be needed in the defence of Zion", she looked at Neo, "which is why-"

Persis took a deep breath. She held out the disc in her palm to Neo.

"I'm asking you to allow me to carry out the Exodus. To destroy the Matrix".

Neo glanced at Trinity and Morpheus questioningly. Clearly they had not been expecting this.

"Why should we let you? Why should we even trust you?"

"Because I owe Zion a lot of lives. I need to make up for what I've destroyed".

"So that you can feel better about yourself?"

"Yes, my motives are purely selfish", Persis remarked dryly, "but if there's one thing I can give to you, it's this. Smith gave me my past, I'm giving you the future. Call it a gift. If you don't believe me then take the disc yourself. You have my word, for what it's worth."

It was certain that she was telling the truth. After scrutinising her Neo came to that conclusion and slowly pushed back the offered hand with the disc in its upturned centre.

"I hope you find what you're looking for".

Persis smiled thinly.

As the trio turned away and walked down the darkened street, Neo paused and spoke, his head turned slightly over one shoulder.

"And if you don't keep your word, I _will_ kill you".

Persis nodded in agreement.

"I wouldn't expect anything less".

She walked back to the sedan and got in, closing the door as quietly as possible. She exhaled with relief. Now it was up to her. Neo would need to defend Zion in the final battle. In turn Zion would need her to carry out the Exodus. 

In the cloying veil of the early morning darkness the sentient programme that Persis mentally admitted _she_ needed slipped back to the motel room, where it had woken to find her gone.


	15. Exiles

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Warning. Much angst lies ahead.

Morithil.

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**14. Exiles.**

Narada closed his books at the end of what had been an extremely long evening. He gathered his soft, somewhat worn robes around him before leaving his office. He plucked idly at the sleeve of his tunic, which had begun to lose threads and was growing at least a couple of millimetres shorter every hour.

There had been a meeting with the Council just a few hours previous, when he had been attempting to get all the records up to date. Why, he didn't know. With possible battle on the docks of Zion approaching with every second, it seemed nothing short of ridiculous to be concerned about book keeping. But, still; in case the world didn't end, his office would be waiting for him, as organised and tidy as it always was. And it wasn't as if the fate of Zion was completely decided, after all. There had been a message from Neo.

The Council had been called together; he had been summoned, as had every captain of the fleet's numerous ships.

The Exodus had been discovered. It had been thought that the disc had been destroyed by the sentient programmes the fighters called the agents. As it turned out, the disc had been in the possession of an agent all this time.

The agent that had once been Persis. A face from the past.

My brother's past, Narada shook his head, not mine. It had been difficult keeping up with the abundant information that the man believed by some to be the One had sent. Persis had been dead. For some, inexplicable reason, the machines had resuscitated her body and plugged her back into the Matrix, at least, that was the theory. Somehow she'd recovered her memories of who and what she had one been and now it appeared that she was willing to help set the countdown to the destruction of the Matrix.

It was all too much to take in during two hours.

Firstly, that there_ was _a disc with the power to set in motion a self destruct mechanism from within the Matrix. Secondly, that the superiors in Zion had been plotting to retrieve the disc to destroy the Matrix. After that, the entire condensed version of the reappearance of Persis into the Matrix and her time as a sentient programme, for the greater part. And after that, it got even more complex, the twists and turns in the progression of events that even Narada found challenging to keep up with. Another agent-no, wait, Neo had stated that-what was its name? Smith, was no longer an agent of the system and effectively a rogue programme, had reinstalled the details of Persis' life as a human, and as a hybrid of human and programme into her system, completely restoring her memory and reverting part of the process used to make her an agent. For what reason? Narada closed the door and clicked the latch into place. And now, her memory recovered, Persis, back from the dead, back from the ignorance of her sentient existence, back as a hybrid, had offered to activate the disc within the Matrix _herself _and destroy the lie that was the simulated reality of the world the machines created to enslave mankind.

It was small wonder that the leaders were skeptical of her motives. The woman was still, for all appearances and purposes, an agent. Part programme. She had retained most of the features of a sentient programme and was still considered dangerous. What to believe? Who to believe? But Neo had accepted her proposal. So that made her offer legitimate. Didn't it?

Narada wandered down towards the direction of the docks to check up on another patient. Bane, another of the soldiers from the fleet, had two deep cuts across the palm of his hand that ran the risk of infection. All in a day's work, Narada thought.

But when would it ever end?

********

Persis ran up the steps leading to the motel room she and Smith had been occupying. She noticed that the door which Johnson had broken had been replaced with a new one, so new that the safety tape left by the workmen who had installed it still hung from the corners in tatters.

She pushed the door open gently.

Smith stood in the centre of the room, the pale morning sky obscured by the drawn curtains covering window, his back to her. The room was darkened. Persis closed the door behind her softly to give herself more time to take in his form as he stood facing away from her. For no apparent reason, she remembered leaving the room the last time she'd been in the Matrix as a freed mind. She'd told Smith then that she couldn't stay with him. She'd found herself crying and smiling by the time she'd reached the exit. Tears of joy and sadness. She cleared her throat pointedly.

Smith looked partly over his shoulder at her. She saw the dark octagonal outlines of his sunglasses. Misgiving gnawed a hole in the back of her mind. She'd felt the same after getting in the car after seeing-

"What?".

She voiced the question assertively but predicted she would spend the next few moments either talking her way into submission or fighting for more than just her own existence.

"I trust you had a pleasant conversation with Mr. Anderson".

"Smith-"

"I always understood that humans were full of little contradictions, nuances in the make-up of their personalities, their characters full of undesirable traits, different shades of their morals-"

He turned slowly round to face her, hands clasped behind his back. Persis fought to quell the tiny voice begging her to throw down the disc at his feet and make him stop addressing her in the icy manner normally reserved for others. Not her.

"-negatives to their alleged good attributes. However-", and here he paused for maximum effect, "-I never considered dishonesty to be one of yours".

Persis gripped the door handle behind her hand and for a second the brass threatened to give way and disintegrate beneath the sheer brute strength in her clenched hand. Oh, but that cut. Hearing him say that had the same adverse effect as being slit to the bone with a sliver of metal.

"Do you question my loyalty?"

Smith actually laughed. But, and Persis noted it with a degree of guilt, it was a sharp metallic sound shot through with bitterness and disbelief. Oh Smith, she thought, you opened that file and suddenly you're the one being betrayed. 

"No, I do not question your loyalty, Miss Carlisle, because it _appears you have no loyalty_. You flit between sides, man and machine, with a remorselessly haphazard attitude that even _a double agent_ would be proud of. No pun intended".

He was being deadly serious. His mouth was firmly held in a line of resolve.

"What about the Matrix?" Persis asked, her voice sounding small and insignificant in the face of Smith's contained but potent fury.

He remained stolidly silent.

"Take your glasses off, Smith"

"For what purpose?"

"Because I want to see your face".

He removed the dark glasses slowly and pointedly before returning his gaze to hers. Persis could see the glimmer of threat in the cold blue orbs. She almost sighed.

"_What about the Matrix?_"

"I used to marvel at it, its detail, its beauty, its genius. That changed".

"Humans".

"Yes. You came, you settled, you bred like locusts and spread out across the planet abusing your resources as you did so. I hated you".

"Do you hate _me_ Smith?"

He momentarily dropped eye contact.

"I suppose that leaves me alone. So much has changed". - Persis almost spat, feigning scorn when all she could feel was pain, "You were the splinter, Smith. And you know something? You stuck in me, right here, under my skin".

Smith looked incredulous.

"Am I right in assuming that you sought to include me in this attempt to save the remaining humans left in that festering wound that calls itself Zion? You grievously misunderstand my purpose-"

"What purpose, Smith? You exist to destroy Neo, to destroy the One, and what then? Even if you do succeed in your personal vendetta against him what does it leave you with? You will still be here, Smith, you will still be trapped here, in the Matrix. What will you be fighting to destroy then? The whole world with you in it? WHAT WILL YOU BE FIGHTING THEN, SMITH, WHAT? WHAT WILL BE YOUR PURPOSE THEN?"

"What is the purpose of humanity?" Smith returned scornfully, as he paced slowly around her, dissecting her with his piercing glare, "You destroy what you create, you forge the foundations of your own destruction and then you have the audacity to blame the intelligence you have made yourselves. You brought your doom on your own heads, time and again you prove yourselves to be incapable of ceasing to be wasteful, destructive, ignorant or repeating your mistakes which you refuse to learn from. Humans are a disease, a virus of this-"

"And what am I, Smith? A disease? A virus in your system? Tell me, I'd appreciate the knowledge of what you consider me to be".

Smith's previously tight-lipped expression turned into a snarl. He turned away from her and stood facing away from her questioning look. Persis realised that he was practically sulking. How much had opening the file on her changed him? Smith was certainly acting like a person betrayed-but then, he was. She had helped his nemesis, Neo, and Smith was almost certainly hurting because of that.

She stepped towards him, standing next to him, taking in his profile but not touching him, much as she wanted to. She could feel his breath quicken and her eyes began to smart as she beheld how much more human and much more powerful he had simultaneously become. He was a striking contradiction. But then so was she.

"We're exiles, Smith. You and I. We don't seem to belong here. The only difference between us is-is that you're intent on destroying both worlds, machine and the Real. Don't tell me otherwise, Smith. I know you. I know you're powerful enough to do that. You want to destroy two worlds. I want to save one. I may not fit in with other humans, particularly now, but I feel I have a duty, I can't deny what part of me still is. I'm not asking you to help me. I never expected you to, for obvious reasons. All I hoped is that you would try to comprehend why I'm helping them".

"Why must you help them?"

"Because it's the right thing to do. I can't abandon the rest of humanity to be annihilated by the sentinels, nor can I leave the rest to eke out existences that aren't real. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do."

"Define right".

Persis was silenced. A look of intense concentration she put on to veil her true emotions stole across her calm face. She admitted defeat.

"You are unable to define what it is. You expect me to allow you to carry out this move to aid the rebels when your reason is neither logical nor remotely concrete. You are unable to explain why because the reason, if you could call it that, is inexplicably human, intangible and cannot be relied upon ".

"Define love".

She doubted even Smith was unable to feel the air between them spark with electricity. Point taken. Smith turned to her and grabbed her face aggressively in both hands, looming over her, unable to keep from venting his frustration, his anger at so many things; why was she doing this? Why did it affect him so strongly, and why did that amazingly painful sensation keep returning when he saw the effort she was putting into keeping tears at bay?

" _Why must you stand in my way? Why must it be you that is my only obstacle in obtaining my freedom? "_

Persis shook her head as far as the tight grasp he had on her face allowed. For the longest time Smith had been the only thing that was real to her. But there was a lot more at stake than this. There was a world, a population that needed saving, needed one last chance. Who was she to deny them that? This was her only chance at forgiveness for what she had done. Her words flooded back to her.

Yes, my motives are purely selfish.

Could an act be selfish and selfless at the same time? She had to choose between freeing Smith and freeing all humans. She had made that choice when she'd left him in the dark of the early morning. She looked up, stricken.

"Why don't you just HATE ME , SMITH? WHY? HATE ME! MAKE THIS EASIER TO DO THAN IT IS, YOU CAN KILL ME NOW SMITH, WHY DON'T YOU? WHY CAN'T YOU JUST HATE ME AND MAKE THIS PAINLESS FOR BOTH OF US? HATE ME! DON'T-DON'T-"

Don't love me, Smith. Don't say you can reciprocate that. Because love impedes your judgement, your resolve wavers. You lose everything.

With great deliberation Smith lowered his hands from her face. He replaced his dark glasses and made for the door.

Persis heaved back a wrenching sob, feeling her very being turn to iron, feeling herself grow cold and distanced. There was no going back now. She had made her choice. She donned her dark glasses as well, so that it in the relative darkness it became near impossible to watch him go.


	16. Unexpected

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **

alocin-so, you want Persis to change her mind, huh? Well, only time will tell what the former agent formerly known as Carlisle will do…^_^ Though letting Smith go was a pretty tough chapter to write…*sobs* ; )

Aoden Half-elven- thanks for that *blushes again* you really are too kind…I tried to show how Persis' resolve is quite strong by having her put her sunglasses on at the end; a) because it seemed to make her more emotionally distant although in reality she's imploding inside L and b) so that her connection with Smith is made more obvious. Glad you liked it!

Exobiologist-poor kids indeed…I think it's great that you and my other reviewers are sticking with this story-thank you! When are you going to update Defector Programme?? Its brilliant…

Selina Enriquez- I am definitely feeling the Moby soundtrack to "Exiles"…nice choice-I find that certain songs help me write chapters and set a particular mood..I listened to LOADS of music before I wrote The Hybrid and The Exodus-I will list the songs at some point…^_^

Kaldicuck- Hi! Thanks for your review! I'm right there with you, waving an implausibly large Smith banner…although I kinda like Neo too…he just doesn't have the charisma and killer sense of humour Smith has…^_~

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**15. Unexpected.**

Smith clasped her hand in his again. It was growing warm. 

Persis pulled him closer.

"I want to rest, Smith, I want to rest. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't have been a great many things".

Then she pulled away slightly and looked at him.

"I want to be new, Smith, I want to start again. I don't want to-"

"Remember".

"Not this. Not being an agent. Not the killing. Not what I've done here".

"They can do that. They can send you back into the Matrix".

Persis looked at him sadly.

"I don't want the Matrix anymore, Smith. It's cost me more than I had. That's why I'm going to help destroy it.".

"Then you must choose, Persis", came his logical reply.

Persis scanned the horizon as she had before, searching for an answer.

"I've killed people, Smith. I've killed defenceless people, women, children, people that were contacted by the rebels. I've fought and killed rebels too-people I fought 

with, people I might have known..", she ran a trembling hand through her hair, "I can't remain here anymore, knowing what I've done".

Smith considered this statement. Guilt, it seemed, carried more weight than most emotions, he noticed, wandering if any of the other new emotions rampaging in his system could be filed under that heading.

"Smith, I have to help or Zion will be destroyed..._I have to save Zion"._

Smith looked intensely at her.

"I can't help you".

Persis looked at him at first with surprise, then understanding.

"You still hate them, don't you? You hate all humans".

"Not all humans".

"Smith-"

"I _won't _help you. I had other things to attend to".

Persis was puzzled by this at first. Then she realised why. She had strengthened his singularity of purpose; only Smith's purpose within the Matrix was not to let mankind live.

"Neo".

"Yes".

"You're going to kill him. You're going to kill the One. You want to destroy the last hope that Zion has before the machines get there first".

Smith sighed resignedly. "You forget the connection he and I share".

"You weren't so intent on revenge before. I liked you better then".

"You still like me now, _Persis_".

She couldn't deny that. All the old feelings, long since forgotten had resurfaced with the rest of her past and blossomed.

"Do you still hate the Matrix?"

Smith looked uncomfortable for a second. "Yes".

"You still want to leave it, don't you?"

His silence was all the answer she needed.

"I have to ensure that Zion is saved, or all will be lost".

Smith nodded a little wearily.

Persis pressed her ear piece closer and closed her eyes.

"They are coming".

Smith stepped closer, so close she could feel the heartbeat included in his programming to keep up the pretence of humanity.

"I cannot actively help you, but", and he gently pulled her ponytail downwards, tilting her mouth up to his, "however, I will remain indirectly involved. Do what you believe is what must be done; carry out what is your purpose. I will not stand in the way of that. I am_ compelled _to allow you to do what you have to. I am unable to become an obstacle in the way of _my_ purpose for continuing to exist and avoid termination".

She closed her eyes at this admission. No one would ever express love in quite the same way Smith had just done. She hoped no one else ever would.

Persis smiled and the countdown began.

* * * * * * *

Persis sat up with a jolt. She ran a weary hand through her hair, smoothing the disturbed strands. She clicked the joints in her neck and hands before looking around and realising that she'd slipped into an escapist daydream at the bar, her boots kicking at the legs of the stool she sat on.

A fantasy. It was beautiful, but one that wasn't to be realised.

She downed the rest of the glass before her and took her glasses off with a faint sigh.

At least it was better than the last real dream, the one she'd had before waking up in an empty room without Smith's solid and comforting frame lying next to her amidst the chaotic sheets. She'd woken up cold. The dream, if it could be called that, had left her practically frostbitten.

Persis cradled the empty glass in her hand, staring emptily at the dull bronze reflection of herself in the mirror behind the bar. The dream had been a dark and twisted vision of what she had the power to let happen.

She stopped Smith as he turned to leave. He looked almost disdainfully at the hand on his arm. Persis pulled out the disc from her jacket pocket and let it fall to the floor. Smith looked at her, realisation of what she was doing dawning on him.

Persis finally spoke.

"We are exiles, aren't we".

"You said so yourself".

"We'd never fit into either world. We don't fully belong -_ anywhere_." She spoke slowly as she realised how pathetic her plan to aid Zion had suddenly become. It would not guarantee her acceptance from Zion, let alone forgiveness. Smith, on the other hand, did not care what she had done. Persis came to the conclusion that she did not care what he had done either. It seemed terrible and cold hearted to think so, but it wasn't just her sentient aspects that induced her to start believing that Zion did not really deserve the chances it had. Perhaps ignorance is bliss, she mused, perhaps I can forget.

Smith removed his dark glasses and stared at her meaningfully.

"Humans cannot be relied upon".

"Machines cannot understand", she returned, "perhaps exile is our only choice, as we do not belong to either world".

Smith smiled carnally, "I could change things here", he said looking around, "we could _create our own_".

Persis raised an interested eyebrow.

"You're_ that_ powerful now, Smith?", she teased.

The amused face drew closer.

"You cannot begin to comprehend".

"_Then show me_".

Persis gripped the thick cut glass tightly in her hand. It was almost frightening, seeing herself in the dream, willing to let all human life be destroyed and starting anew with Smith by her side. She saw the darkness spreading over the world; she saw stormy skies and driving rain. She stood in the shadows as Neo and Smith fought, rain pouring down on them both, her eyes willing the sentient programme on and glaring at the black clad human as if a look could kill. She did not know if the images were dreams or visions of what was to come. Persis saw herself descend into a crater awash with rain and mud, and snapping a metal pole in half, proceed to ram it, jagged end first into the back of a figure, she couldn't see who. Then it all blurred. She thought she saw herself wrapped around a rain drenched figure, pulling him closer into her embrace and then- was this another vision?- and then she stood, soaked to the bone as Smith stood imposingly over the prone form of Neo lying face up in the thick mud, water pelting onto his still face. The human world was doomed. The machine world would be ruled by them.

She witnessed her transformation; saw the gloriously dark future ahead of them. Persis watched as she became as malevolent and driven to wreak destruction as Smith, no more cream leather and noble aspirations, but black and dark blue silk and ties, sex and death in a sinuously sharp cut suit and pointed metal heeled boots under her perfectly pressed bootcut trousers. Her metamorphosis into Persis; veritably the bringer of destruction, like one with Smith as they gorged on devastation, power and each other, as beautiful and merciless as-

And there she woke up.

As Persephone, she thought, her mind on fire with the notion. The next Persephone and Merovingian.The last two beings I want to become even minutely like to. The image of herself in that black and dark blue suit, all silken and deadly, and of Neo lying in three inches of mud, rainwater and his own blood came back to haunt her.

It had seemed so real. Was it a dream, or something more? Was it a sign of things to come if her resolve wavered, and she gave in to the gnawing pain that grew with every hour not spent with Smith?

You lost everything because of him once, she reminded herself, this may be a vision of what you could gain because of him. But is that what you want?

Her hand shook and the glass shattered in her palm. Persis looked down as if in a trance, slowly registering the sharp pain and she opened her hand and the shards slipped from her grasp, cutting into her skin. 

Blood seeped from the cuts. A thought struck her quite unexpectedly.

Forgive me, she whispered to the broken vessel, I know now what I must do.

********

Hermes ran, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, his breath growing slowly more and more ragged. He'd been running for a long time now. The computer systems on the Olympus didn't have enough power to position him as near to the point as he would

have liked. They were preoccupied with the war. He could almost envisage them charging the EMP as he ran, ever closer.

Sooner or later he would have to drop to street level. There was the danger. Agents were everywhere. 

Hermes wasn't sure he would make it. Zion needs to be warned, he told himself. He gritted his teeth and jumped off the building to the streets below.

He shot down, changing his positions as he did so, finally winding round an open-air pipe and hitting the ground running. He dashed past people on the street, just going about their lives as he had done. He had been an errand boy for a computer hardware store, devoting his spare time to computers and the forbidden art of hacking. He thought he ran past the self same store as he pelted towards the drop off point.

How strange life was, sometimes.

Then without warning, two agents stepped out from the building to his right. Hermes froze. The agents walked towards him. Hermes closed his eyes for the inevitable but prepared himself to run to the post box no matter what. Hermes tensed every muscle in his body for the sprint to the post box. The agents approached, getting ever closer, and then-

Inspiration. Hermes fired repeatedly from his twin guns, slowing the agents down as they dodged the oncoming hail of bullets. He ducked down an alleyway and made for the alternative route to the drop-off. It would take longer, but if he was lucky, he could lose the agents in the twisting streets. Hermes crashed through the front window of a shop and rolling across the floor, got up again and rain for the back door and the main street crammed with people. He ran for the lit up front of a bar at the end of the street.

Hermes burst through the side door and ran through the kitchens to the front of the bar. He emerged, panting, pressed against the panel of the swing doors, receiving curious looks from the customers sitting at tables and at the counter.

Persis looked sideways at the young man in the dark brown leather jacket and black trousers, his sunglasses like a thick band of dark lens across his pale face. She stood up slowly as he reloaded his guns, thrusting the clips in with a frantic energy,

"You're Hermes, aren't you?"

He looked up in shock at the woman in the agent suit in front of him.

"Who the hell are you?" he breathed.

"I am Persis", she replied in even tones.

"Jesus Chri-" he began, fear seeping through every pore.

Persis looked around and saw the upgrades walk through the door. She whipped around to Hermes.

"Go. I'll hold them off".

Hermes looked at her, aghast, uncomprehending.

Persis glared at him.

"GO!"

Hermes pelted off in the opposite direction, winding his way back to the drop-off point. The upgrades halted as Persis strolled leisurely towards them, drawing her gun smoothly from its holster with languid informality.

"A little lacking in efficiency, aren't we?", she mocked, "you still haven't managed to terminate me".

"The programme is altered. She remains human. Do we proceed?"

"Yes. Leave her, the messenger must be stopped".

Persis threw herself forward, firing as she did so. The agents swung in impossible angles to avoid the onslaught pouring from her gun. Persis jumped high as they returned fire, emptying their clips at her as she ran along the length of the bar, bottles crashing everywhere, glass splintering on the floor. Persis leapt off the bar and swinging on a ceiling beam, gained momentum and kicked out at the agents' heads at she dismounted, began a furious routine of attacks on all three as they advanced on her. Punch, kick, roundhouse kick, chop, cartwheel backwards, leap into the air-

Bullet time slowed everything down she executed a magnificent pike jump to avoid the sweeping kicks of the first agent, and throwing her legs wide, landing smoothly on the floor, her legs in perfect lines in front and behind her as she did the splits. Ducking the punches of the agents she drew her legs up with impossible ease into a standing position and, gripping the one agent's head in ruthless fingers, brutally twisted his head round. The crack of a neck vertebrae snapping echoed in her brain. How many have I killed like that? Persis wondered. She kicked out at the remaining agents, using the first's useless form as a shield, viciously stabbing at their stomachs with the heels of her shoes and the points of her toes. 

When they dropped prone to the floor Persis looked up and realised that time was pressing. It was then that the world seemed to spin round her and nearly every light across the city sparked out for a select few lining a long stretch of road. She hadn't been expecting that, but she knew what to do.

Darkness had fallen.


	17. Defining Your Enemy

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I'd love to share thoughts and views on Revolutions with more of you, but I don't want to be the bringer of major spoilers for those who haven't yet seen it^^...

Vis á vis, as the Architect would say ^_~, feel free to email me: MorithilMuse@aol.com

Also-there is one last chapter to follow this, in case you were wondering…^^I will upload it a.s.a.p.

Morithil.

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**14. Defining Your Enemy.**

She remembered the words, always the words.

Persis found herself in a Matrix she did not know. The sky was dark and shot through with lightning bolts that crackled through the air like malevolent claws. From suddenly standing in the abandoned bar to being transported inexplicably from one part of the city to the next took a while to adjust to. She swayed slightly, steadying herself on the wall, disorientated and momentarily confused.

Then she knew. She saw the darkness around her for its significance and the rain for a sign of things to come.

Smith.

What had he done? she agonised. What indeed, the voice inside her answered.

A blinding pain suddenly struck her. Persis stumbled and grasped at her throbbing head. She knew where Smith was.

She started walking.

The rain beat down mercilessly, relentlessly persistent and cold. 

At some point she kicked out savagely at a metal pole missing the sign normally at its top. She twirled the weapon casually in one hand, the jagged end where it had broken sharp and cruel. She walked through the deserted lonely streets like a ghost; rain running from her fingertips and the strands of her hair. Persis slowly pulled the band from the ponytail and let the weight of it fall onto her shoulders in thick, straight folds. Her statuesque frame looked as haunted as the empty buildings around her appeared. Persis stopped, mid step. What? she thought, looking at her sleeves.

Wide leather sleeves. Black.

She looked down at herself. The suit jacket was gone, and replaced with a leather trenchcoat identical to that she had worn once, the only difference being its colour. She noticed that the shirt and tie remained. Fingering a wet lock of hair she realised it had also reverted to its original colour. Black as the night around her. So, she was returning, going back to who and what she had been.

However, she did not need to check to know that her eyes were still Smith's.

The words and faces kept returning, willing her on. Persis thought she might go mad from them. Her mind's eye was flitting between images of all those she'd known and all those she'd killed.

"NO, NO PLEASE, DON'T, DON'T-"..."Run! Save yourself! It's an agent-just go!"..."Who the hell are you?"..."_Fuck all of you machines_"..."HELP, GOD SOMEONE HELP-"..."What are you doing? What the-"

All those I killed without knowing. Without mercy, without remorse. The echoing screams and cries of pain and fear struck Persis to the core. What am I doing? She asked herself. You know, the voice answered. You knew the moment darkness fell. You knew the moment you remembered that dream. You made your choice. 

Yet the darkness falling and the sudden journey here had been unexpected.

Persis looked down after gazing at the torn sky. She stood at the end of the street. What seemed like thousands of Smiths, all in military rows lining both sides of the soaked road turned their heads towards her and stared. Some grinned, some bared their teeth and the rest remained icily impassive, acknowledging her presence with as much dedication as one would regard a fly. An annoyance.

One stepped out from the front row. He strode out into the centre of the street, pacing to the double yellow lines and faced her. Persis felt her heart pound painfully in her chest. She gripped the pole tightly. The faces of those she'd killed flickered before her in a torturous montage and nearly caused her to cover her eyes as if that would prevent her seeing their faces.

"Something wrong, Miss. Carlisle? Anything I can do _to alleviate the pain_?"

The sarcasm in the comment tore into her and Persis wiped a hand through her rain washed hair to prevent wincing at the remark.

"Don't do this, Smith. Don't make me do this".

In her mind Persis was already down on her knees and begging him with outstretched hands. She could see the pain in his every move, the codes reflecting what she knew he could see in her. She was in agony, and what made it worse was that Smith was no better. He had, however, inherited that most predictable of all human emotions. Denial. 

"Come to save the human race?" he taunted, biting back the swell of emptiness with every passing second she spent in defiant silence. Smith was in turmoil, power and emotion running riot through his system. He knew he was beyond the machine world's control now. Now, he was his own master. But Persis, she-

She still remained necessary to him. She must join him, he raged, it is logical, inevitable. We are two of the same kind, no other being could possibly comprehend our connection, he concluded, resolute. 

Persis felt the emotion break in her voice as she spoke, "The Matrix will still exist. The Matrix will still be here, you'll still be here, Smith-you'll still be here, trapped, in this place if you stand in the way of the Exodus".

"I'm afraid you are mistaken, _Miss. Carlisle, _when Zion is destroyed I will have my key. My key to leave this-_zoo_, as there will be no purpose to my remaining here".

"There was no purpose to my remaining in the Matrix, but yet I am still here, Smith. I am still here. And I want to escape it".

Smith smiled bleakly.

"Then why aid the other rebels? When they are gone you too will be free. You will no longer have to remain here; you will be able to-"

Smith abruptly cut off the rest of his sentence. It didn't matter; Persis knew what he had been about to say. I will be able to leave with you, she thought. It was a beautiful dream. She voiced her thoughts.

"It's a beautiful dream, Smith".

"I do not dream, Miss. Carlisle".

"Neither do I".

Persis discarded her sunglasses and faced him with her eyes open wide, impenetrable and strikingly blue. Smith remembered what her eyes had been like before; dark and fathomless, even to him.

"Don't do this. Don't make me do this, Smith".

The angular eyebrows rose instinctively.

"You would stop me, Persis?" He strolled almost nonchalantly towards her.

Don't say my name, Smith, Persis quietly pleaded. Don't make this harder.

"Then you are truly more than your human nature allows. You are more ambitious, more _driven_, more purposeful, more singular in your purpose than I imagined. You _are_ mine. You belong with me. I_ feel _somehow that if I were to destroy you I would be destroying part of myself-"

His aching fingers reached out and firmly stroked her face, running down her cheekbone. His features contorted. Smith pushed back the yearning to lap persuasively at the Circean mouth. 

Persis shivered, and it was not from the cold. Seeing him now, dark and malevolent, more powerful, more driven-

It was wrong, but she couldn't deny it. Smith had become more alluring and even more magnetic to her than she dared possible. Then they came back. The faces. The words.

Priest, Aei, Seefa. Calyx, faithful to the last. God, the Antigone, I loved that ship, she inwardly cried, God I loved that ship she was mine, what I worked for is no longer, those I knew are dead. 

"That was close sir", the Antigone's operator spoke inside her head. Yes, Persis thought, too close. I'm so sorry, Calyx, I'm so sorry, all of you, Neso, Titus for both your understanding and acts of kindness those I knew in life and-

"_Don't fight me_, Miss. Carlisle. You can't deny what you are, what _we_ are. We are the same, you and I, torn free of both worlds. You _belong_ here, where you are at your most powerful and where_ I _am", Smith hissed sibilantly. 

Persis looked away before lashing out at the face that had been the first thing she'd seen every time she'd come back. If Smith's fury was all consuming, than her desperation was equally potent.

When he swung back at her she would have welcomed the crushing pain, allowed it to overwhelm the feelings driving her on, but her hand still gripping the pole swung it up in a reflexive block manoeuvre. She flipped the pole, flat end first and struck at Smith's jaw, cursing herself with every shallow breath she took into her lungs. He drove her back, lashing out with pounding fists and jabs that she knew would travel through flesh and bone if they got any closer. Persis spun the pole in front of her in a metallic shield, blurring her vision of him slightly and sending droplets of rain flying in all directions.

Smith knew the moves. Most were his. The rest, the rest were hers, and he welcomed the challenge of improvising responses to her every balletic strike and graceful kick, her moves incorporating the impossible speed and crushing strength of an agent with a lithe beauty and dazzling array of different attacks that were her own. Smith mentally winced as he fought her off. He wanted her, still wanted her, even now as she sought to wound him with the sharp end of the pole she used to fend him off with. He tried to shake off the feeling, but it was as deep-rooted in his system now as the increase in his powers.

He needed Persis. She had become almost necessary to him. Smith fought the notion off, but he could not help but wonder at the probability that killing Anderson and not having Persis with him to control the Matrix would leave him with a strangely empty victory.

He neglected to inform her that the effects of having emotions were making him more vulnerable than before. There was a bruise on his wrist hidden by the jacket and shirtsleeve. It had not vanished. It lingered. But with his immense powers it was almost certain that no one would harm him and stay alive long enough to discover his new frailties.

Persis gritted her teeth as Smith swung out at her head with a clenched fist resembling a ball of iron. She ducked to avoid it but swung too high with the pole in a counter attack and left herself open to his other fist as it pummelled straight into her unprotected torso.

She flew backwards and tumbled onto the concrete. Sorely winded, aching already from the blow, and debating whether she was bleeding internally, Persis realised something astonishing through the numbing pain.

Smith was holding back.

Theoretically, that punch should have passed straight through her and emerged out of her lower back. The blow hurt, goddamn but it hurt, her muscles groaned, but it had not been the fatal attack she'd been expecting.

Was Smith becoming more human even though he became more powerful as a programme? Persis tried to control her crazed string of questions and stood up again. When she leapt into the air, the weapon held out horizontally behind her, one arm out before her to focus on her point of descent, she thought she detected a tiny flicker of doubt on the former agent's face.

But when she brought the pole crashing down to his head he was ready and turning swiftly on his heel, grabbed it out of her soaking hands and flung it away from them decisively. Persis rolled into a break fall as she hit the ground, but before she could adopt a defensive stance Smith had her throat in his unstoppable grip and her feet were straining to touch the wet concrete. He had to make her understand, make her see that it was useless to resist when it was obviously logical to join him, not oppose him. Fighting her was becoming more of a strain on Smith's growing foundations of a conscience. Persis tried to hold on to her resolve as stars exploded before her eyes, oxygen escaping her lungs rapidly. History does repeat itself after all, she thought grimly as she made a last bid to release herself. She kicked out at his chest, and registered Smith grabbing the assailing limb firmly.

Simultaneously he relinquished his grip on her oesophagus and Persis was flipped neatly onto the ground, landing on her stomach.

The darkness of the wet road was strangely soothing to her aching body. Shooting pains were blossoming all over her torso and for one dreamlike moment, Persis assumed she would black out.

Then Smith turned away from her to confront a figure at the opposite end of the street.

Neo.

Dimly Persis recognised the flowing robes of the One and admitted that if the potential battle was going to be stopped, then now was the only time to do so.

There was too much at stake for her to remain motionless in the gutter.

She crawled feebly, using her arms to traverse the hard surface. Painstaking moments passed, every second seeming like an eternity. Almost blind with distress and biting her tongue to prevent herself crying out for him she reached the pole, laying discarded some feet away.

Define love.

Neither logical or remotely concrete. You are unable to explain it because the emotion, if you could call it that, is inexplicably human, intangible and cannot be relied upon.

Silence between the two facing each other. Persis asked the godless landscape to forgive her for what she was doing, for she could not begin to assume she would be able to forgive herself.

Latching onto the pole, she drew herself up into a preparatory stance, and turned slowly to see Smith standing facing Neo, his back to her.

Persis slowly walked, but found herself running until she arrived, sprinting full tilt forwards like a leather clad juggernaut, the pole clenched in a deathly grip with both hands.

She didn't know that it would be as if someone tore her physically in two. She'd never been so involved with anything or anyone before. Her tortured cry rent the night with similar passion.

Smith looked down.

The jagged end of the metal pole protruded grotesquely from his chest, somewhere under his right shoulder. It pointed obviously at the darkened figure of Neo, who stood as if in a daze, refusing to believe the scene in front of him.

Denial, the most predictable of all human emotions.

Blood trickled from the serrated edge.

Persis withdrew the weapon, using all her strength to rip it back out of Smith's body. Her accompanying sob a telltale sign of how difficult, how nearly impossible it had been to make the fatal move. She flung the pole away from her as if it had bitten the hand holding it.

Smith stood indifferently; dark stains slowly spreading from the wound. Fleetingly, Persis thought she had missed where his heart would have been, and then made the pain masochistic when she hoped she had.

Was that blood? Had she been right to assume that Smith was becoming human and so more vulnerable? Did that mean-

Smith turned round to her, with obvious effort.

Persis' tearstained face spoke volumes of anguish and the rawest of sorrows.

He reached out for her and when she clasped his arm they both descended as the sentient programme fell to his knees, taking her with him.

A simplistic set of phrases came back to her as she gently levered him down onto the concrete, gut wrenching sobs racking her frame silently.

You always hurt the one you love.

Define love.

A thin line between love and hate.

Define hate.

Destroying him I destroy myself, she screamed inwardly. Persis fervently hoped that the other Smiths would rip her into shreds, but when she looked up they had disappeared.

It was just her and Smith, and the just visible form of Neo in the distance.

"It's not fair".

Persis looked down at the resigned face, crying the tears she felt she'd held back since forever.

Define fair, she thought.

"Nothing's fair, Smith...but for what its worth I-"

The once agent dismissed her response with a bloodied hand. She tried again, her meaning fragmented, all apologies. Apologies that would never be enough for either of them, Persis bemoaned.

"I couldn't let you-let you become...what I could have become was evil and-as exiles, it wouldn't have worked...we can't - what if-"

Smith placed a bloodied hand on her shoulder.

"What if, indeed".

Persis swallowed partly from anxiety, partly from the steady weight of Smith's hand on her shoulder, mostly from the anguish of feeling the wetness of the dark red flower seeping from his shoulder. She slipped an arm underneath his wounded back; fresh sobs emerging as she felt the torn edges of flesh.

"Would you have let it go? Would you have let Neo do what he has to? If we could have left here, would you have stopped planning your revenge?"

Smith turned away, one cheek to the concrete.

Persis mentally grimaced. So there was nothing to be done. Smith would not have rested until the One had been killed. There was no hope for-

Smith looked up and faced her with a deadly seriousness in his eyes.

"You have become almost necessary to me. You demonstrated a new set of abilities, a new range of experiences".

"I made you vulnerable again. I -"

"I made the choice to open the file. It seems unfair that you are the cause of this downfall which is otherwise self inflicted. You came to stop me".

"Why was I brought here?" she tearfully asked, "Did you summon me here?", she challenged Neo, who stood uncomfortably some distance away.

"I did", Smith answered.

"The Matrix, it-"

"-It is a cage", he finished for her, "and you hold the key. _My _key to escape this-"

"In this disc is the key, Smith. Our key". The lie left her lips smoothly; and yet it was not a complete falsehood. The disc _did _hold escape for them. And it held rest. Peace. 

Death. Deletion. Surely the disc would destroy everything created by the Matrix, even her. Even Smith. When the Matrix was destroyed all the machines, all the programmes would cease to exist. 

She wanted to ease his pain.

Smith grimaced as the new sensation of pain-induced lucidity engulfed him.

"-prison. _Set me free_".

She felt her fingers enclose around the disc and its smooth edges. How strange, how infinitely remarkable that such a small object could determine the fate of mankind. A 

girl had died in transporting it. A girl she had killed. Now was the time to let thoughts of retribution pass. Now was the time for rebirth, to start afresh. But not for me, she accepted. But not for me.

She nodded to Smith.

He was struck by how much such a simple gesture could affect him. There was never anything more beautiful, he found himself thinking, never an entity so complex, so unique, so-_his. _Persis _was_ his ; they were like one. Both each other's destroyer and creator. She had literally brought him to his knees.

Persis blinked as the disc gave up its final information regarding the destruction of the Matrix. All we have is now, she mused; I leave the future to humanity. Persis withdrew the disc from her pocket and pressed it slightly. The contents of the slim object flowed into her, the information, the fate of mankind. Smith looked human now, she observed, seeing his mouth twist in another grimace. Persis lay, partly net to him, partly leaning over him as he remained stretched out on the road.

I made the pain real. 

"Get to an exit", she said clearly for Neo to hear. She vaguely saw him disappear from her peripheral vision, and felt herself grow numb.

They lay in the shattered concrete and rain, water pelting down on them from the blackened sky.

She found his hand and clasped it in hers, their fingers intertwining as they had before. A faint glow emitted from Persis' fingertips, which grew stronger with every pulse of her blood through her veins.

It grew brighter, the transfer gaining momentum and speed. 

Smith was already losing the information on what Thomas A. Anderson looked like, forgetting his purpose, finding it difficult to hold onto everything he had striven to do before Persis. His system was caving in on itself. There was a feeling of release in this, he realised. Before Persis there was nothing. After Persis, he would not exist. He suddenly felt lighter, relieved of a burden. He did not understand why, but he held no grudge against her for stopping him, just acceptance, and-was that sadness? Was this what humans called peace? This silent, calm sensation inside ?

Accessing databases...

Searching for databases...

Run search again...

Find items 'databases'...

Smith reluctantly gave up the search, unable to locate the databases, only the items Persis had imprinted onto his system.

Persis suppressed the strangled noise in her aching throat. 

She pulled him closer and waited for oblivion.

Persis released the disc's information, using her very being as the tool of destruction.

* * * * * * *

Rays of light shot out from the minute space between them, stretching out further and higher.

The pure light grew in size and intensity. Persis opened her mouth to scream.

The light smothered the Matrix completely and shone even brighter. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone.

A sudden flash marked its departure.

And both worlds seemed to hold their breath.


	18. Landscape

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Well, here it is, the last chapter *sniffs*. It's been quite an experience putting this on the net, and having you guys review it and respond so positively is quite something…

I'm not done with writing Matrix fanfiction yet, though^^

As for the music that influenced some of the scenes in The Hybrid and The Exodus;

Rage Against The Machine-Know Your Enemy

Unlocö-Bruises

Linkin Park-Session

The Flaming Lips (Fantastic band! I saw them live on Tuesday…amazing gig)...One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21, In The Morning of the Magicians…almost anything from their album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.

Radiohead-Paranoid Android

…There are probably more, but then the list would be too long…

****

Morithil.

****

****

**NOTICE: **Unfortunately, I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. **HOWEVER: **All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.

**15. Landscape.**

The sky seemed to combust, a globe of blistering light exploding and swelling in the aftermath of its detonation, spreading, faster and faster, across the city, the country, the continent. Over the world within the Matrix.

Shockwaves rumbled with deafening baritone voices as they rippled across the surface of the earth, the surface projected by the construct. The huge globe that had appeared and then shattered streaked the clear, simulated sky and tore it into shreds in lightning bolts of power. The tumultuous, shifting, stormy sky of the Real World opening like a colossal envelope across the expanse above the chaos below. Chasms split open in the landscape of the towns and cities painted by the A.I. hands of the machines. The wrecks and ruined skeletons of the war against the machines revealed in all their dark, crumbling grandeur; reminders of times that had passed and would not come again.

Reminders to never let history repeat itself.

Whole blocks disappeared, the ravaged, tormented earth of the world known to Zion's children, born and adopted seeped through into the consciousness of every single human; man, woman and child that the Matrix had convinced and seduced into comfortable familiarity. The lie broken by the power of the truth that swept the territories where sentinels once roamed like steel and electronic predators in a savannah as black and lifeless as the cores of the search-and-destroy legions. The noise was deafening, threatening to obliterate all sound after its departure. The human fields were cut loose by the giant scythe contained by a small, slim disc no bigger than the palm of a woman's hand. Genie-like, the information in the disc swayed from its plastic, synthetic depths and travelling like a bolt of pure, cleansing force through the conductor of Persis' residual self image, purged the world of the threat to all humanity below the surface.

Near the core. Where it's still warm.

Sentinels dropped like stones, their empty, unseeing laser eyes dulled in the cold and clear light of true day in the Real World. All machines and programmes that had been wired into the Matrix were deleted or instantly destroyed. Artificial intelligence became non-existent intelligence. The only machines left were those transporting the crews of Zion and warming the air below the surface. Then, after the initial shockwaves, secondary shockwaves and the noise had blasted itself into relative silence, all eyes were on the scene around them.

The howling echo of the winds that swirled in the air a reminder of the sheer destructive power that was held within the disc. One life cut down, and finally, the item she had transported had lived up to its potential. The Matrix was gone. Wiped off the scarred face of the planet. The large tentacle trailing forms of the decimated sentinels dotting the landscape like carcasses of strange, metallic dinosaurs, obsolete in the face of this new future.

********

Before the nothingness, before the blank space, Persis remembered the scene changing around her as if it was a vivid dream.

In the dream she surveyed the almost infinite change that had occurred. She stared at the apocalyptic landscape around her, the Desert of the Real. The howling winds screeched emptily above her head, the clouds of the scorched sky twisting into new, fantastical structures and adopting whimsical forms. No longer threatening. Her eyes and ears hurt from the impact of the blast. She had been thrown backwards from the force of the explosion. She tucked a stray, floating strand of hair behind her ear and took in the damage that her actions and the disc combined had wreaked on the unsuspecting Matrix.

It was a strange new world she found herself staring at before the world went white.

The eerie scene and the wolf zephyrs that surrounded her added to her shock and gradual comprehension.

A flapping sound above her head caused her to look to the war torn sky, which now seemed like the roof of heaven. A black clad figure swooped some stories overhead, his coat tails moving in undulating waves behind him.

Neo.

In the dream she had watched in fascination as he flew across the shifting sky like some beautiful, alien bird in the stillness and near cavernous silence. So this was what freedom felt like. She half expected him to return with an olive branch, since in her mind now he would always be associated with the dove that flew after the great flood in a biblical age that seemed mirrored in the present, like some wonderful coincidence that made the words rise in her throat. Persis stretched out her arms in a messiah like position and threw her head back in release. The rattle of the winds blowing through the cages of the human fields miles away sounded in her ears. The desolate notes formed by the collapsing sentinels clanged like dissonant cymbals in her brain. The winds, the winds were extrinsic, weird and thrilling in their circling journeys over the land beneath her feet. 

Then there was nothing.

*********

The ceiling looks as if its been freshly painted. The tang of newly applied emulsion is still sharp in the air.

Warmth.

When she opened her eyes she was convinced she was dead. Then her senses picked up the soft comforting weight of the duvet covering her. She was lying in a bed in a room she did not know, but seemed strangely right to her, as if it harked back to some forgotten memory from her past.

She moved slightly and sat up, the duvet slipping down her frame. She looked around. The room was large and spacious, but there was something familiar about it, about the soft sheen of the wooden floor and the cream walls. There were boxes, she noticed, not attempting to contemplate why they were there. Cardboard boxes, some slightly open, as if someone had just moved into the house and had not finished unpacking.

She slowly swung her legs from the cheering mattress and realised that there was the sweet whistling of birdsong from somewhere outside the room. 

The mattress compressed slightly from a slow movement. She looked back.

The stern face she found hard to place in her new surroundings. Eyes closed, his breathing low and regular in sleep. She feared moving again, as if he would vanish on the heels of the wolfish breezes from her dream and cease to be tangible.

She knew the eyes were striking and blue.

She studied him, laying on his left side, blissfully relaxed, all tension gone from his body, the rise of his chest with every breath. Numb with hope and disbelief she sat paralysed, unable to do anything except take in the form next to her, removed from the formal suit and tie, unbelievably casual in a plain grey marl t-shirt, soft and unstructured from being well worn, visible above the duvet held under one arm.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing, but with every tick of the clock on the mantelpiece the sight became more real to her.

Dazed, Persis mouthed his name.

Smith.

He didn't disappear.

Instinctively her hand moved to her stomach and drew up the hem of the silver-grey satin chemise that clung to her serpentine body. She felt her stomach. The skin was a little tender and vaguely recalled some strenuous assault on it, but otherwise it was fine.

Persis' eyes flickered towards his sleeping form. She carefully stretched out and pulled down the worn neck of the t-shirt between thumb and forefinger. A pale scar stretched a wavy line from below his collarbone to almost the apex of his chest. He shifted slightly and her fingertips grazed his skin.

She reluctantly rose from the bed, determined not to wake him, stealing longing glances back at him as she padded softly across the floor, her grey low slung pants slipping across the finished surface. She somehow made it to the door and ventured out onto the landing.

The window near the stairs was slightly open. She could feel the fresh breeze, redolent of just-cut grass and clear skies waft into the house. Somewhere down the street the laughter of children tinkled in the new air.

Is this the Matrix? Persis questioned the room.

The voice inside her answered in the negative. Absent-minded she felt for the node at the back of her head and could not locate it. If this is not the Matrix, then where am I? She wondered.

Somehow she knew it was not the Matrix, nor was it the desert of the Real she had seen.

She had done it.

She had helped destroy the Matrix, helped free Zion and the enslaved human race. That knowledge meant being absolved from all the sins she'd committed as an agent, meant rest from the fighting and meant it was now the morning after the interminable night of the Matrix. _Maybe she was alive_. 

She pinched herself to confirm it. She was really alive. But she was not convinced, not yet.

Persis walked in a daze into the bathroom. She studied her reflection in the mirror over the clean white sink. 

Black hair; which fell in gloriously tumultuous waves, framing her face hanging over one eye alluringly. Her eyes as blue as she had remembered them, unusually set in their slight upturned shape which hinted at some Oriental or Asian background and her trademark cynicism.

She washed her hands gently and methodically in the sink, the flow of cool water at once refreshing and soothing. She dried them carefully on the soft towel hanging from the nearby rail, carefully in case a sudden movement would cause the whole location to vanish.

When she made it back out onto the airy landing a figure rose from a footstool to greet her.

He was still wearing the dark glasses and the hems of his coat swayed slightly as if he'd literally just flown in.

Neo looked at her.

Persis looked down, somewhat abashed, folding her arms in front of her, one hand cupping the back of her neck, suddenly embarrassed by the fact that she stood facing the One in a somewhat low cut, lace edged chemise and looking as if she had just got out of bed. Which was the truth.

Neo grinned knowingly and looked away, almost bashful.

"Morning".

"-Morning", she returned, still dazed, accepting everything she had seen only because she expected to wake up from this wonderful dream.

"Am I dead?" Persis probed.

Neo shook his head.

"If you were, I wouldn't be talking to you", he answered dryly.

She considered this.

"Are _you_ dead?"

Neo snorted quietly, "No-you made sure of that" he responded, his gratitude evident.

"Is this the Matrix? Am I still plugged into the Matrix?", an edge of panic in her voice made him grow serious again.

"No. The Exodus destroyed the Matrix. It no longer exists. But then you knew the answer to that question already".

"Just making sure".

Neo grinned.

"Is this another programme?"

The One shook his head. Persis sighed loudly with pent up relief. 

"How-how am I-"

"You were not created by the Matrix, only altered by it. When you set the Exodus in motion, you were undoubtedly still human, and so you were unharmed".

So she was alive. Persis took a moment to take it all in.

"And-", She looked hopefully towards the sleeping form in the bedroom.

"You forget. He was not wired into the construct. You imprinted yourself onto him before, transferred the rest of your humanity into him before the Matrix was destroyed, and the consequences of that must be visible".

Persis relived the enormous globe exploding into rays of piercing light, and though the explosion was contained within her, she swayed from its impact. Joy. She saw their hands linked together and a strong glow of light radiating from them. She had changed Smith. Did that mean that he -

"-Is human", Neo answered for her, anticipating her question, "When you touched him as the Exodus happened, everything the mainframe programmed into him was made void, even his hatred of other humans and only what you imprinted onto him remained, making him- well, _human_."

Worried, she voiced her concern, "He's not-he won't be angry or-"

Neo shook his head adamantly, "Trust me. I can see he's not. If he had rejected the transformation, rejected becoming human, he wouldn't be here now. You'd have woken up alone. He accepted the change, he accepted what became inevitable."

"I was preparing myself to be destroyed by the disc".

His head cocked bemusedly to one side.

"That makes two of us".

They stood staring at each other through dry eyes. Persis swallowed with effort.

"Where, where is this place?"

Neo surveyed the space around him and met it with approval.

"The world you've created. Between the two of you, that is".

"What?" incredulous, her hand dropped from the back of her neck and hung in front of her.

"The Exodus contained the information to destroy the Matrix. However, it had a double purpose. It also contained the means to construct a new world, for the purpose of holding the new Matrix. However, it seems that you and-", he nodded towards the bedroom, "had designs on that without knowing. Seems you both secretly wanted quiet lives. Freedom".

Persis closed her eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Neo set his jaw firmly.

"We feared if you knew, you might use the disc to start a world that would take over both human and machine, replacing the Matrix with something perhaps more terrible. The Council was afraid that you were still not to be trusted, given the influence _he_ had on you and the force that the two of you united would be".

Persis resignedly nodded. Who knows what I might have made if I'd known, she mused. All too quickly the dark vision of what would have happened if she'd helped Smith became a frighteningly potential reality.

"So this is real?"

Neo nodded, "Everything, everyone in this world is real. This is not the Matrix, or another programme. Your mind is not enslaved to a computer simulation. This is not the world where Zion is. But it _is_ real".

He looked towards the window as children's laughter from a neighbour's garden became audible again. 

"In time you will forget that you are responsible for creating this. But there are some things you won't forget. Some memories will fade, others will remain".

Persis understood immediately.

"Some things you choose not to forget".

"Exactly".

He turned as if to leave and paused.

"You've earned this. You can start living now".

Living, Persis repeated to herself. So this is how it begins.

"Its a blank canvas. A new beginning"

"Neo -thank you"

"Thank _you_", he returned.

She made to walk back into the bedroom. Neo halted her with an impulsive movement.

"By the way", he added, "he likes his coffee black, no sugar".

Persis found herself smiling.

"How would you know that?"

Her voice had trembled. Slightly. Persis, still so determined to remain in control.

"I don't", Neo admitted sheepishly, "it's just a feeling. And-he kind of likes you. A lot. Perhaps it's more than 'liking', I'm sure you'd know ".

"I'll keep that in mind". Oh it's more than liking, Persis smiled. Much more. 

He spun gracefully around, his coat hems imitating his action. He looked pointedly at her.

"You won't be seeing me again".

"I know. You should be heading home, where you belong."

He nodded respectfully and, walking swiftly down the stairs, opened the front door, and closing it once he'd exited the house, took off like a bolt out into the distant blue.

Persis hesitated for a second, standing on the open landing. She explored the next room, still bare and littered with removal boxes. We're going to have to unpack this lot, she murmured. We'll start after breakfast.

She smiled to herself at the normality of the life ahead of her. Little, everyday things were in it now, no more running and hiding, no more killing, no more fatalistic choices. She pushed the muslin drapes away from the window. A quiet, affluent neighbourhood scene welcomed her. Large white houses, each one different from the next, well kept lawns; but it was not perfect, nor did she want it to be.

It felt like she belonged. Small details that recalled moments, objects in her life, freed and otherwise, were scattered everywhere. Those she did not recognise she assumed were Smith's.

She walked silently back into the bedroom, and his sleeping presence made her heart ache with contentment. Sliding back under the covers and relaxing against the gratifying pillows she turned on her side to look at him. She slipped a slender arm around his waist, under the covers and shifted closer.

She pressed closer to his chest and inhaled the fragrance of his skin and hair, committing them to memory not restricted to files or databases. Real memory. 

Persis held him loosely as she practically glowed with comprehension. He was real. He was no longer just a programme with a frowned upon anomaly. The pumping of the circulatory organ in his chest was now operating for a true and necessary reason. The blood needed to reach every part of his body. She saw everything, caught him as he mentally fell from the clinical heights of sentient awareness and plunged into the depth of human emotion and understanding. When he resurfaced there was a new vitality about him, as if he'd been refreshed. Persis cradled his face in her hands as she kissed him softly, drinking in his taste, gently provoking a response. She flicked her tongue into his mouth only to withdraw and then gently seize on his lower lip, provoking a barely audible moan from the back of Smith's throat. Still gradually waking up Smith kissed back, savouring the familiar and new sensations as he registered the pleasure induced by the intimate gesture. His hands automatically moved to her shoulders and waist, pulling her in minutely, his lips parted as he took in his first real breath. An expectant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Define love.

Persis' mouth opened in a knowing smile. Well,_ Persis_, _neé Carlisle_, she thought, testing out the title in her mind; you're looking at it.

She tensed with anticipation. Persis positioned herself so that she would be the first thing he saw in the world they'd created for themselves. 

Smith opened his eyes.

.FINIS. 


End file.
